I have quite a few questions about it:
1) Assuming everything went swimmingly with actually finding a place in time, what would be sufficient proof of ‘intent to live together’? Would a written note from a landlord suffice, or does it need to be something more formal?
2) Is getting a place without a current visa valid beyond August even legally possible?
3) How problematic is taking one room in a share house? We were warned that it might breach environmental laws - I also have doubts about whether people will want to live with 2 people in preference to 1, which brings to the next question of alternatives:
4) Does taking 2 separate rooms in the same share house unproblematically constitute 'living together'?
5) Would it be possible for us to share an address but also for me to have a second one (for eg, we might be able to move in with one of my parents as a last ditch resort, but the commute would be something like a 5 hour round trip, so I'm wondering if I could legally stay in another place closer to work without counting it as my primary residence for some fraction of the week)
Another possibility would be for me to quit my job and study for a bit for a career shift - this is something I was seriously thinking about doing anyway, and might be made easier if my partner finds work, but there's this stipulation about minimum salary to take into account, so that raises a few further questions:
6) At what point in the processing of the immigration request will my salary matter? If takes 6 months, as I've heard, will I need to meet the salary requirements at the end of that time, at the point I submitted the visa, or at some other time?
7) After they've been met, do I need to commit to continuing them, or could I then quit without annulling the (hopefully confirmed) visa?
After that, are we required to meet them again every 2.5 years (or whatever the interval is), or are we only required to do so if we're applying for permanent residency/citizenship/whatever the subsequent stages are?9) If I don't meet the salary requirements, what are the savings requirements? (let's assume I'm on an income of zero, so we're looking at the maximum figure)
10) Do the savings requirements have to be met specifically by me and my partner, or could they be met/contributed to by a guarantor?
Many thanks again!