Family Visa - for sister-in-law visiting from Thailand

[Trickyjabs]

I hope that someone can help me with a couple of questions I have about Family Visas for visitors from Thailand. It is for my wife's sister, who has been to visit us in the UK on two previous occasions for six months at a time.

We would like to apply for a longer visa this time (12 months), and just wanted to confirm if:

This is more difficult to achieve. (Is the embassy only likely to offer a 6 month visa)
The correct cost of the visa. (Normally for a visitor visa it is £65 for upto 6 months and £205 for longer periods)

On the embassy website it states that a family visa is £65, but it doesn't mention the period of time it is valid for.

Many thanks for any help.

[Wanderer]

Even tho there are 12 month, two year and ten year visitor visas they are only valid for six months maximum stay at any one time and even then only six months in every twelve. Otherwise the IO will doubt the visitor is a genuine visitor and effectively living here on it.

[Trickyjabs]

[quote="Wanderer"]Even tho there are 12 month, two year and ten year visitor visas they are only valid for six months maximum stay at any one time and even then only six months in every twelve. Otherwise the IO will doubt the visitor is a genuine visitor and effectively living here on it.[/quote]

Thanks for your response, Wanderer.

Just to confirm; is that still the case even though we are applying for a Family Visa as opposed to a Visitor Visa?

[PaperPusher]

Yes, it is still the case for family visitors. They can only stay for six months at a time. If they spend more than six months a year in the UK they may face problems.