Unmarried Partner Visa Reqs

[jd00105]

My partner currently lives in the UK with me on a tier 1 entrepreneur visa which expires in July (I am a British national). We've been in a relationship for around 5 years but have only been living together for 18 months. At the time his visa expires, we will have been living together for 23 months and a few days.

I have the necessary means to support/sponsor us (no kids), but from looking at the visa requirements it appears you can only apply for visa to live with your spouse if you've been living together for 2+ years, which in our case wasn't possible as I was on secondment with my company at the time he moved to the UK. Therefore, I wondered if anyone has any advise on possible visa routes we can take, either to push his stay over the 2 year threshold so that we can apply to live together or alternate visa means (I presume that exceptions would not be made regardless of circumstances of the spouses).

Thanks everyone - really hope someone might be able to offer any advice!

[physicskate]

Marry?

[jd00105]

That's one option, although it would be a significant jump. I looked into the guidelines and one thing that I've noticed is the following wording:
"The parties having been living together in a relationship akin to marriage/civil partnership which has subsisted for two years or more.
"Living together", should be applied fairly tightly, in that we would expect a couple to show evidence of cohabitation in the preceding 2 year period. Periods apart would be acceptable for good reasons, such as work commitments, or looking after a relative which takes one partner away for up to 6 months where it was not possible for the other partner to accompany and it can be seen that the relationship continued throughout that period by visits, letters etc."

The preceding 6 months before we started living together I was working abroad on secondment, and frequently flew back to the UK to visit him before we finally moved in together when I got relocated back to the UK (on my request). However, due to his visa he could not join me abroad so there was no way we could live together at that time. I wonder if because of this, we would be able to apply for the visa since there were exceptional circumstances and I have all of the flight tickets (plus probably all of the texts exchanged during our time apart) to prove our relationship persisted throughout my secondment.

[Casa]

The issue here would be that the break in the 2 year co-habitation period will only be considered if it is after you began living together.

[jd00105]

Ah, that's what I was worried about. So even though we wanted to move in earlier, this would not be considered?

[Casa]

Ah, that's what I was worried about. So even though we wanted to move in earlier, this would not be considered?

Unfortunately, no.