Real Progress on Application
Lots to report in this update.
Employment
Steve's employer was in the process of lining up a move to Reading for him, but delayed us by 3 months due to a bit of a slow down in work.
In the meantime, Steve had another job opportunity drop in his lap through his network. He looked into it a bit, and it turned out to be a really good position, and a great fit for him. Within the space of only a couple of weeks, he'd had about 5 rather informal meetings with different members of the company which has led to a pretty sweet job offer. He accepted on Friday. They want him to start work over here in Vancouver for some training, after he's given notice at current employer, and begin in Reading on July 28th. We have a firm date finally by which we need to be in England.
UK Application
We have completed the online form, assembled 90% of the documentation we need, and are collecting everything else in the next 2 weeks. The financial documents have to wait until the end of the month for the monthly financial statements we'll need. We plan to apply the second we have those. So, June 3-6th. We're going the priority route, which is about US$500 more expensive but cuts the processing time from 6-8 weeks to 2-3 weeks. This will give us some peace of mind by not going right up to our move date, and leaving a few weeks, just in case there's anything wrong with our application and we need to appeal/add to application/whatever the process is.
The UK application has 4 main parts (for unmarried partner settlement visa):
- The Application
- Online: Personal Details Form (VAF4A)
- Hard Copy: Appendix 2 (Financial Requirement Form)
- Original Documents to support above: passports (and new passport photos), criminal background check, marriage status (divorce papers)
- Financial Proof
- Original Documents: Bank Statements, etc.
- Relationship Proof (2 years of living-as-married)
- Original Documents: Proof of same residence (bills, lease, etc.)
- Photos to document 2 years of relationship
- Handwritten letters from friends (This was recommended by our immigration lawyer, but the expatforum.com advice suggests this is not needed as its subjective).
- Accomodation Proof
- Letter from my Mum inviting us to live in her home
- Original Documents proving her ownership (Title Registry)
- Original bills in her name proving residence at address
- Proof of suitability of accomodation to house everyone (floorplan, inspection report).
green=done; orange=partly done; red=to do.
They also want photocopies of everything, as they will return the originals and keep a copy for their records. I also am making another copy for myself, in case anything goes missing in transit.
Physical Move
Actually reducing our belongings (selling, throwing, donating) for the physical move is going at a snail's pace still. I've started to go through my important paperwork to see if there's stuff I don't need to keep in there. So far I've filled about 1/2 of a big black trash bag. Not much. But weight-wise, not bad.
However, Steve and I have sat down and created a spreadsheet breaking down the physical move into 6 parts and setting deadlines to complete each part. This has made everything seem much more manageable in my head. We have a good plan that accounts for everything. Hopefully nothing will slip thorugh the cracks and give us a nasty surprise!
Our priority in the past few weeks has been getting our application ready. Once that's submitted, we will be free to really tackle to the physical stuff. The only other thing to distract me will be starting to set things up on the England side (banking, renting house, etc.). The research for that is already well under way.
We're getting really excited. Honestly, my head is already in England. I have to remember to appreciate Vancouver while we're still here.
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