Please Help Me

[Maid-In-England]

Hello everyone, I'm new to this forum, so please accept my apologies if I'm posting incorrectly.
I desperately need some advice and hope someone can help me.
I am a British citizen, married to an American citizen and currently living in America (have lived there for 2 years).
However, we both very much want to come and live in the UK, but we have absolutely no idea where to start, and unfortunately, cannot afford an immigration lawyer, so we're going to have to do this all ourselves.
PLEASE, can someone help answer some of my questions?

1. Hubby wants to be able to work as soon as possible after arriving in the UK, so does this make a difference as to what visa we apply for?

2. Should we apply for the visa (right to settlement in the UK) before or AFTER we travel to Britain? In other words, should we just come over for a holiday first, and once we're here, THEN start the immigration process?

3. How easy is it to go through the whole immigration process without the help of a lawyer?

Thank you so much in advance
Lucy

[Wanderer]

It's not difficult, you don't need a laywer or advisor if u've got clean immigration histories, moreso for ur husband.

Some problems you might have;

1. Finance and accomodation tests - u need to be able to show you can support yourselves, in reality that means either substationial savings or you come over first and get a job and place to live to start the ball rolling.

2. You cannot rely on thrid-party support apart from the provision of accomodation - ie room at parents.

3. Ur husband cannot switch from visitor to spouse in-country, he'd have to return to US and formally apply for a spouse visa. Unless u have been married for four years - in that case your husband can apply for ILR immediately, tho not in-country on a visit visa.

4. U hubby will be able to work on spouse visa or ILR (bear in mind jobs are hard to come by here ATM).

I don't think you will be able to just come over together and it will be all easy, the most important thing to resolve is the finance/accom issues, and if u both come together without jobs it's not possilbe to do that.

[Maid-In-England]

Hi Guru...
Thank you for your response!
One thing you did post has worried me (and confused me) somewhat... the part about a room at my parents not being sufficient.
Last week I telephoned the Citizens Advice Immigration Helpline, and asked if living with my parents until we find our own place was considered "adequate" accomodation, and after asking me how many bedrooms the house has and then how many people would be living in it, I was told that it was perfectly ok.
Without meaning to sound offensive to anyone, there are plenty of people coming over at the moment from the Middle East who all seem to shack up, perfectly legitimately, in one house, sometimes with up to 4 people sharing one bedroom. And yesterday, having popped into a Waterstones book shop to purchase a copy of the Life in the UK book, the assistant told me that her cousin was married to an American, and that they had lived with her aunt for a while until they'd set up their own accomodation.

Now I am really confused and worried... like my mom said, what does it matter where we live as long as we are not claiming benefits (which we wouldn't be). Who my parents have in their home as guests shouldn't even come into it.

[Wanderer]

Hi Guru...
Thank you for your response!
One thing you did post has worried me (and confused me) somewhat... the part about a room at my parents not being sufficient.
Last week I telephoned the Citizens Advice Immigration Helpline, and asked if living with my parents until we find our own place was considered "adequate" accomodation, and after asking me how many bedrooms the house has and then how many people would be living in it, I was told that it was perfectly ok.
Without meaning to sound offensive to anyone, there are plenty of people coming over at the moment from the Middle East who all seem to shack up, perfectly legitimately, in one house, sometimes with up to 4 people sharing one bedroom. And yesterday, having popped into a Waterstones book shop to purchase a copy of the Life in the UK book, the assistant told me that her cousin was married to an American, and that they had lived with her aunt for a while until they'd set up their own accomodation.

Now I am really confused and worried... like my mom said, what does it matter where we live as long as we are not claiming benefits (which we wouldn't be). Who my parents have in their home as guests shouldn't even come into it.

No, my sentance wasn't very clear - you CAN use a room at ur parents, that's ok, sorry if it wasn't clear. Best to pay some nominal rent too, just to show you don't need freebies.

You will proof of it tho - permission from ur parents, copy of mortgage deeds and some sort of schematic showing rooms are big enough etc. The HO won't trust you on anything, proof, proof, proof.

How will you pass the finance test? you need proof of that too, usually in the form of five-figure savings or bank statements and payslips.

[Maid-In-England]

Oh thank God... I felt sick then when I read that, LOL. You wouldn't believe how long it took for me just to get that particular question answered (about living with parents) before I finally got a response from C.A.B.
I wonder (sorry to be a pain)... where would we go to find out the exact application forms needed once we're in America? We live in Texas... do we go to the nearest British Embassy and if so, will they explain it to us in layman's terms, because I'm under so much bloody stress right now, information I'm given tends to go in one ear and out the other!
I am just desperate to have someone say to me, "Right, go and fill THIS form in, send it to THIS place... then on THIS date, fill THIS form in..." (you get the idea).
Gawd I wish we could afford a lawyer to do it all for us!

[Maid-In-England]

How will you pass the finance test? you need proof of that too, usually in the form of five-figure savings or bank statements and payslips.

Well, I have some savings but they don't add up to 5 figures.. it's around 3k at the moment. But again, other forums and advice pages I've read have actually stated that only the minimum is needed.
Afterall, we know we can't claim any benefits (which to be honest, as far as I'M concerned, I don't agree with, because I've worked all my life and always paid in, never claimed anything out!) and if we don't have the money, we don't get jack!
I think on another forum somewhere (british-expats.com i believe) someone who'd made the move back to the uk mentioned 2k being a "significant amount".
This is all so confusing.

[Wanderer]

Oh thank God... I felt sick then when I read that, LOL. You wouldn't believe how long it took for me just to get that particular question answered (about living with parents) before I finally got a response from C.A.B.
I wonder (sorry to be a pain)... where would we go to find out the exact application forms needed once we're in America? We live in Texas... do we go to the nearest British Embassy and if so, will they explain it to us in layman's terms, because I'm under so much bloody stress right now, information I'm given tends to go in one ear and out the other!
I am just desperate to have someone say to me, "Right, go and fill THIS form in, send it to THIS place... then on THIS date, fill THIS form in..." (you get the idea).
Gawd I wish we could afford a lawyer to do it all for us!

It's all online now;

http://www.visa4uk.fco.gov.uk/Welcome.htm

How long have you been married? If it's over four years it's cheaper in the long run, cuts out two visas, but unfortunately leaves the most expensive one!

There's really no need for a laywer, and if u did get one, the office junior would probably get the job and you get to pay 110 quid an hour, 10 for the junior, 100 for the partner.

These sort of visa for Americans are hardly ever refused, so if your hubby is clean UK-immigration-wise it will be a doddle.

[Maid-In-England]

Thank you for that link, I'll have a read through all the literature.
We've been married for 2 years in December, so I guess that means we get no reprieve...oh well.
It's a shame that lawyers here are so greedy - when I saw my immigration lawyer to get my residency in the States, it cost me $2800 flat rate from start to finish, and that was 2 years ago...seems they charge a helluva lot more in the UK.

[Wanderer]

How will you pass the finance test? you need proof of that too, usually in the form of five-figure savings or bank statements and payslips.

Well, I have some savings but they don't add up to 5 figures.. it's around 3k at the moment. But again, other forums and advice pages I've read have actually stated that only the minimum is needed.
Afterall, we know we can't claim any benefits (which to be honest, as far as I'M concerned, I don't agree with, because I've worked all my life and always paid in, never claimed anything out!) and if we don't have the money, we don't get jack!
I think on another forum somewhere (british-expats.com i believe) someone who'd made the move back to the uk mentioned 2k being a "significant amount".
This is all so confusing.

To be honest I don't think 3k is enough, it doesn't go far in ripoff Britain, not when you subtract flights and the 500 quid for the visa....

I think ECO's prefer to see income rather than saving anyway, their chief concern is 'public funds' and not letting you have any! I empathise re: benefits, I worked my bollocks off last year, self-employed, paid £28k in tax and I couldn't claim anything during a recent bout of no work.

[Maid-In-England]

Don't get me started on the whole, "can't claim anything", thing.... I actually worked for the Benefits Agency for 7 years, and in the 8th year, suffered a bout of severe depression which resulted in them terminating my contract on the grounds of ill-health. When I tried to claim benefits for a while, I was laughed at. Yet someone I know had an Albanian boyfriend who, within 1 month of arriving in Britain, was given a house, benefits, free prescriptions....you name it, he got it. And the *!@#$ was working aswell.
God it makes me sick.

[meats]

Don't get me started on the whole, "can't claim anything", thing.... I actually worked for the Benefits Agency for 7 years, and in the 8th year, suffered a bout of severe depression which resulted in them terminating my contract on the grounds of ill-health. When I tried to claim benefits for a while, I was laughed at. Yet someone I know had an Albanian boyfriend who, within 1 month of arriving in Britain, was given a house, benefits, free prescriptions....you name it, he got it. And the *!@#$ was working aswell.
God it makes me sick.

I had the pleasure of keeping my local council's accounts in order and got on well with the girls in the benefits team. It made me sick some of the stuff that they used to tell me and who was claiming what and the fact that we had to pay for these people to have translators because they couldn't speak a word of English!

[Maid-In-England]

we had to pay for these people to have translators because they couldn't speak a word of English!

Have you seen the book, "Life in the UK" and what it stipulates? "Must have good English-speaking skills."
Are they having a laugh?
How many times I had to interview, and subsequently allow money to, Afghans, Iraqis, Albanians, Pakistanis (need I go on?) who needed their translator (provided free by the taxpayer, I might add) in order to be interviewed.
I want to get my hands on the Immigration secretary and MAKE him/her sit in Wolverhampton towncentre for a day.
Maybe then they wouldn't be so "pro asylum".
GRRRRRRRRRRRR