BritCits

Ravi

“As a self-employed person, the rules are even more onerous…and time apart from my wife even longer.”

Ravi is a British citizen. He married his wife in early 2013, in Mauritius. Like many Brits, Ravi as it turns out, somewhat naively assumed that being a British citizen himself, having his wife with him would be a mere formality.

For Ravi, the financial requirement of £18,600 is the stumbling block. He is self-employed and his financial records for the 2012-13 tax year in their current form are unlikely to satisfy UKBA.

Allowing for solicitor and application fees in the thousands of pounds, he is of the opinion applying is not a risk worth taking, given the higher than average likelihood of refusal for those who are selfemployed.

Ravi is aware he could wait until after submitting the 2013-14 tax year accounts, making sure these would meet with UKBA approval, but that means waiting till April 2014 before he can even apply, plus the UKBA processing time which by all accounts just seems to get longer, and longer.

He is considering taking on a salaried/wage paying job paying in excess of the minimum requirement,collating 6 months of payslips and applying then. However, allowing for the time to find a job and then again the application time as well, it’s also a long time to be apart from his wife.

So he has several routes open to him. One route he is considering is Surinder Singh. He has a birthday later in the year and hopes he can have his wife with him then so this resort of self-exile is the most appealing to minimise time apart, inconvenience and cost. A route to self-exile is the only route the government has not been able to close.