Emmigrating to the UK

Soutie_za said:
A quicker way might be to have a look at the UK Ancestral visa. If her dad was born in England her Grandfather/Grandmother might be too. this is a quick and relatively painless route to get in the UK, and there are no financial requirements. Just Visa costs and NHS Surcharges.

Applying for citizenship in Austria might be a long process, i know it is for alot of countries. The ancestral takes a matter of weeks rather than months or years.
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Unless you need vault copy birth certificates from Home Affairs. This is what takes the longest. To get a certified copy of a birth certificate from the UK GRO takes only a week or two.
 
dmw said:
Also I think there is a minimum salary to be earned by the spouse thats bringing the other spouse into the UK? There is talk about it being increased to £35,000.
I am a UK/S.African citizen and have been married for nearly 20 years.
At one point we were thinking of making the jump back to the UK in 2002. We got a indefinite leave to remain visa straight away from the British Embassy in Rome. Unfortunately, the wife felt obliged to carry on working for DIRCO and we never entered the UK to get the entry stamp and the visa expired.
Now we can't get her into the UK because of all the stupid restriction about earnings and savings. Also because the visa application is handled by VFS, there is no talking to a British Visa Diplomat and pleading our case.
I so wish I had made the jump as I am unemployed here and no job prospects are really making financial problems for us now.
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What field are you in? Have you asked for help here? If you PM me your details, we can connect on LinkedIn and get you visible in my network. It's taken my hubby 7 months to find work - we are expecting an offer in a day or so to work abroad. It's not a great option, but it's either that, or downgrade everything to half of what we have and not be able to retire one day.
 
DrewChan said:
Theres no problem here - she can get in easily, the mission here is getting ME in :P as far as I understand that's where the financial problems start
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Not on an ancestral visa, only on the spouse of a citizen. Strange I know but there are no financial requirements on Ancestral dependents, only have to pay Visa Fees and NHS surcharges exactly as she would need to
 
Visa fees...

1000GBP per dependant last time I looked.
 
Soutie_za said:
Not on an ancestral visa, only on the spouse of a citizen. Strange I know but there are no financial requirements on Ancestral dependents, only have to pay Visa Fees and NHS surcharges exactly as she would need to
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Wow thanks for the info I will give this a shot
 
DrewChan said:
This I am not worried about - I can gather around 300k before leaving (If I pull it off)
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UK ancestry VISA costs,

VISA fee - £324 per applicant, so two people £648
NHS surcharge - £200 per year of the visa, so for two people £400 x 5 = £2000

https://www.gov.uk/ancestry-visa/overview

The above charges do not include the fees you will pay to the agency if you use one, they are around R5000 so the least of your worries and will increase your chances of getting it done right..

Then you need to provide bank statements showing you have at least £4000 in your account, you cannot tell them that you are trying to get the funds, they must be in your account and that is after paying all your fees.

Make sure you have enough money, once you are here borrowing money will be a challenge. Also rentals if you don't have a guarantor some people want 6 months deposit, I was lucky and just met with the landlord who was happy with the standard 1.5 months.
 
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I did not realise it was that easy to get into the UK if your partner is a British citizen or holds the correct visa. My fiancée is a British citizen and we may move back to the UK at some point. Nice to know it might not be that much of a mission. :)
 
Tander said:
I did not realise it was that easy to get into the UK if your partner is a British citizen or holds the correct visa. My fiancée is a British citizen and we may move back to the UK at some point. Nice to know it might not be that much of a mission. :)
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I don't think it is that easy to get a spouse into the UK. As I posted earlier, for me to bring my wife to the UK would require me to earn £19000 a year before tax and if the Home Office gets it's way, that is likely to increase to over £30,000 a year.
If you don't need to work in the UK, then I think it would be a whole lot easier to get a 5 or 10 year multiple entry visa and just keep going in and out.
 
My hubby has a Tier 2 visa and it would be a simple matter of getting a spousal visa I suppose. However, I do qualify for an ancestry visa and would prefer to go that route, i.e. get a visa on my own merit. Or am I being silly? An ancestral visa seems to allow for more flexibility and benefits.
 
bokdrol said:
My hubby has a Tier 2 visa and it would be a simple matter of getting a spousal visa I suppose. However, I do qualify for an ancestry visa and would prefer to go that route, i.e. get a visa on my own merit. Or am I being silly? An ancestral visa seems to allow for more flexibility and benefits.
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Only thing an ancestral visa does not allow is access to public funds. All the companies I interviewed with were more than happy with my visa and it did not cause any issues.
 
dmw said:
I don't think it is that easy to get a spouse into the UK. As I posted earlier, for me to bring my wife to the UK would require me to earn £19000 a year before tax and if the Home Office gets it's way, that is likely to increase to over £30,000 a year.
If you don't need to work in the UK, then I think it would be a whole lot easier to get a 5 or 10 year multiple entry visa and just keep going in and out.
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It's pisseasy. If you can't earn that in the UK then you won't survive there anyway.
 
dmw said:
I don't think it is that easy to get a spouse into the UK. As I posted earlier, for me to bring my wife to the UK would require me to earn £19000 a year before tax and if the Home Office gets it's way, that is likely to increase to over £30,000 a year.
If you don't need to work in the UK, then I think it would be a whole lot easier to get a 5 or 10 year multiple entry visa and just keep going in and out.
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The financial requirements would't be a restriction to us as we surpass the threshold.
 
Sinbad said:
It's pisseasy. If you can't earn that in the UK then you won't survive there anyway.
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Exactly. Its not cheap here. Fortunately if I were to make the move here, I'd be on a fair amount more then 35k per annum anyway.
 
Tander said:
Exactly. Its not cheap here. Fortunately if I were to make the move here, I'd be on a fair amount more then 35k per annum anyway.
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It was difficult the first few months, but once you settled you start to realize how much extra cash you have and although things are far more expensive you are earning a bucket load more.
 
dmw said:
If you are qualified enough yes. When I was last working in the UK, I was getting minimum wage and that wouldn't be enough.
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Yeah the idea isn't for you to bring your wife over and work as a barman.
 
dmw said:
If you are qualified enough yes. When I was last working in the UK, I was getting minimum wage and that wouldn't be enough.
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Unfortunately the same can be said for any country you reside in on minimal wage.
 
dmw said:
I don't think it is that easy to get a spouse into the UK. As I posted earlier, for me to bring my wife to the UK would require me to earn £19000 a year before tax and if the Home Office gets it's way, that is likely to increase to over £30,000 a year.
If you don't need to work in the UK, then I think it would be a whole lot easier to get a 5 or 10 year multiple entry visa and just keep going in and out.
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Hold thumbs for the supreme court ruling on the income requirements in February, they are lobbying to scrap it.

The issue isn't whether you would earn it in the UK or not, the problem is showing that you as a single person was able to earn it in South Africa. with a single Kid and partner you need to have earned R 562 500 the year before moving. that's a good R50k a month and out of range for a chunk of South Africans.

another option is looking at the Surinder Singh route if you can afford to work in another EU country for 6 months or so.
 
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