Unmarried Partner | Family Visa

Hi there,

I am hoping to get some help. We have been doing a lot of research about Visa options to get me to the UK to be closer together. The forum has been great but I think we have more specific questions that haven't all been touched on, or so we can find.

Here are some details just help with a reply.

- Together for a year, known each other for 8 years (he lived in ZA, then moved to UK and is a British Citizen).
- Long distance, South Africa and UK
- We are not looking at Civil Partnership or Marriage YET but have seen that unmarried partners can get a visa by proving their relationship in other ways.


This is from the Family Visas section on the UK Gov site:

If you do not live together
If you cannot live together because of work or study, or for cultural reasons, you’ll need to prove that you have an ongoing commitment to each other. You can do this by providing evidence that you:

communicate regularly with each other
support each other financially
care for any children you have together
spend time together as a couple, for example on holiday or at events

My Questions:

- How specific are they about the time spent together, must we have surpassed the 2 years together exactly before we even apply, or are they lenient on this?
- We have screenshots of chats everyday, call logs, photos of visits and some from the past few years when we were just friends stored. Will this be enough, how much evidence do we need in order to prove our commitment?
- Financial support - he will sometimes pay for something like half a plane ticket, maybe a car repair cost or other small things. How important is this record to keep, should we be making more regular transactions where I pay for him and he pays for things for me like occasionally my groceries, etc, etc. While it is not needed on my side or his as we have good jobs, will this be beneficial to aid in the visa process?

Looking forward to hearing back from you.

Thanks in advance! We are hoping to sort the visa out towards April next year nearing closer to over a year and a half but the sooner the better. We are just cautious of the 2 years mentioned.