You have to earn £38,700 before your overseas partner/spouse can live in the UK

[Dr. Furface]

If they'd banged the threshold up to £28.6k - an extra 10k on the current limit - it would have been bad enough and still made it very difficult for many people to emigrate here, so would have enabled them to claim a significant reduction. But obviously the temptation to claim a reduction of 300,000 per year was just too good to resist, because they clearly haven't given a second's thought to the hammer blow this will cause to the already fucked UK economy (or if they have, they simply don't care - take your pick). And that's apart from the personal devastation it will cause to hundreds of thousands - or more - of people's lives.

One can only hope that the reaction from the business community will be so fierce that they will at least be compelled to reduce the threshold down to something that will be slightly less disastrous, but even if they do I can see this having a greater economic and social impact that any other legislation or event that I can remember.

 

[flypanam]

We spent ten years in the UK, my canadian wife found the whole immigration process grating and terrifying. And we had it easy as she originally got in through EU treaty rights but getting settled status was an absolute nightmare. We had to hire some very expensive city solicitors in the end for her to get the status.

Since then we've moved to Ireland. I've not got an automatic right to bring my spouse here as an Irish citizen but in practice the state allows it. We provided the documents, waited 3 months, had a meeting with the immigration Garda and she got three years residency after a 30 minute chat.

I feel for you mwgdrwg get the application in ASAP and get immigration solicitor who can deal with the home office bullshit would be my advice.

 

[danny la rouge]

You can’t marry whoever you want. That’s the headline. I’ve never earned anything near that threshold. Neither have most people in the UK: the median wage for full time employed is £38000. Only the wealthy have freedom of marriage.

 

[story]

Paying for the lawyers to help you get through this shit show is another huge wedge of money on top.

 

[The39thStep]

If they'd banged the threshold up to £28.6k - an extra 10k on the current limit - it would have been bad enough and still made it very difficult for many people to emigrate here, so would have enabled them to claim a significant reduction. But obviously the temptation to claim a reduction of 300,000 per year was just too good to resist, because they clearly haven't given a second's thought to the hammer blow this will cause to the already fucked UK economy (or if they have, they simply don't care - take your pick). And that's apart from the personal devastation it will cause to hundreds of thousands - or more - of people's lives.

One can only hope that the reaction from the business community will be so fierce that they will at least be compelled to reduce the threshold down to something that will be slightly less disastrous, but even if they do I can see this having a greater economic and social impact that any other legislation or event that I can remember.

Previous reaction from the business community to migrant workers filling job shortages

"Some of those asked to help fill skills gap say they have been effectively paid as little as £5 an hour and charged unexpected fees"

Foreign care workers invited to UK ‘exploited on grand scale’, says union

Some of those asked to help fill skills gap say they have been effectively paid as little as £5 an hour and charged unexpected fees

www.theguardian.com

 

[flypanam]

Paying for the lawyers to help you get through this shit show is another huge wedge of money on top.

It is but dealing with the home office is a ball ache. My wife would have been refused settled status if we hadn't got lawyers involved. There is no joy in dealing with UK immigration authorities.

 

[MickiQ]

Paying for the lawyers to help you get through this shit show is another huge wedge of money on top.

That's a good point I would imagine there is no legal aid for this, if you can afford the lawyers then you probably don't need them.

 

[story]

.

 

[story]

It is but dealing with the home office is a ball ache. My wife would have been refused settled status if we hadn't got lawyers involved. There is no joy in dealing with UK immigration authorities.

That's a good point I would imagine there is no legal aid for this, if you can afford the lawyers then you probably don't need them.

If there’s any confusion, or if you’re right on the threshold, or if your income is not fixed, or any number of other th8ngs that put you slightly into the “it depends” category, the extra cost of a lawyer dumps you firmly into the “no way” category.

 

[kabbes]

This is a terrible thing and so I’m wondering about ways to game the system.

Does anybody know how they are defining ‘income’, and how the home office can actually check this threshold is being met? If somebody has three jobs or is self-employed or has some kind of artificial pay arrangement designed to notionally boost them over the threshold, do the home office have the capacity to review this and challenge it?

I can think of all kinds of temporary workarounds if the aim is just to boost income by a few thousand in a single tax year

 

[Silas Loom]

There may well be workarounds, although they would rely on self assessment rather than PAYE. But if they rely on informal ad hoc money transfer arrangements they leave people open to blackmail, or to being complicit in money laundering, and if they are organised they are presumably much more easy to identify and shut down.

 

[belboid]

This is a terrible thing and so I’m wondering about ways to game the system.

Does anybody know how they are defining ‘income’, and how the home office can actually check this threshold is being met? If somebody has three jobs or is self-employed or has some kind of artificial pay arrangement designed to notionally boost them over the threshold, do the home office have the capacity to review this and challenge it?

I can think of all kinds of temporary workarounds if the aim is just to boost income by a few thousand in a single tax year

If you come in via sponsorship you will have a fixed declared income. The extent to which it will be checked you are actually paid this is highly variable. Multiple jobs would be allowed - but only if your visa allows it. The self-employed have to have invested far more than 38k to get a self-employed visa (boot that there is an SE visa, but there are ways to get what's effectively an equivalent).

And for social care workers, the chances of being able to dubiously boost their income by a 'few thousand' is Zero.

 

[story]

Plus not everyone is as canny as would be necessary to do this.

 

[story]

As well as being cruel and venal, this policy is very stupid.

 

[steeplejack]

This is a terrible thing and so I’m wondering about ways to game the system.

Does anybody know how they are defining ‘income’, and how the home office can actually check this threshold is being met? If somebody has three jobs or is self-employed or has some kind of artificial pay arrangement designed to notionally boost them over the threshold, do the home office have the capacity to review this and challenge it?

I can think of all kinds of temporary workarounds if the aim is just to boost income by a few thousand in a single tax year

They'll ask for 6 months worth of bank statements and verifiable payslips as well as letter from emplyer confirming your annual salary before tax.

 

[MickiQ]

It used to be a lot easier than this when my FiL returned to the UK near the end of his stint in the RN with Mrs Q, her mum and her sisters in tow near the end of the 70's they apparently just rocked up and it was a case of
"these are mine"
"Sure thing Dude welcome home"
It took the MiL a few years to do but she got two of her three sisters here by basically persuading a couple of FiL's mates to marry them. Her own Mum died when the youngest one was about 14/15 (Mrs Q was around 12) so MiL managed to persuade immigration to let her adopt her own sister. I can't imagine any of that being remotely possible now even for someone as persistent as Mrs Q's Mum.

 

[story]

And they’ve all been such a terrible burden on the state, haven’t they MickiQ . Such a dreadful burden, draining resources and giving back nothing.

 

[MickiQ]

And they’ve all been such a terrible burden on the state, haven’t they MickiQ . Such a dreadful burden, draining resources and giving back nothing.

In the case of Mrs Q youngest aunt, I seem to remember MiL telling me that there were limits placed on any help she could claim for her (no child benefit etc). She (Aunt S) is retired now but she became a nurse (insert irony here) and was one for about 30 years when foreign nurses in the UK were a lot rarer than they are now. Mrs Q and Aunt S have always been close (they were virtually sisters for a bit) and it's quite possible that Aunt S may be the one who encouraged Middle Q to become a nurse as well (none of her own kids did)
Both of her other aunts are still married to the guys they married and have kids and grandkids (and even a great-grandkid) though since one of them got big into "Happy Clappy Praise The Lord" religion some years back, her husband might be having second thoughts now.

 

[mwgdrwg]

Could there not be a case that this breaks human rights law under both articles 8 and 12 (right to respect for private and family life and right to marry)?

Human rights? You mean pesky red tape. Your human rights will be gone when they rush in the laws to ship people off to Rwanda.

 

[Elpenor]

Income would probably be proved via payslips / P60

P60 figure shows taxable pay which is gross pay less pension contributions for most people, so in practice might mean needing to earn more than the limit?

 

[kabbes]

Income would probably be proved via payslips / P60

P60 figure shows taxable pay which is gross pay less pension contributions for most people, so in practice might mean needing to earn more than the limit?

That only shows PAYE income though, no? I could in practice have lots of gig economy jobs, which would only be brought together via a self-assessment tax statement.

Bank statements can show your income, but that includes income from whatever sources happen to flow to that bank account. And it’s a gross income, not a net income. If I borrow £5000 and then pay it back, the bank statement will prove I received a £5000 income.

 

[Spymaster]

That only shows PAYE income though, no? I could in practice have lots of gig economy jobs, which would only be brought together via a self-assessment tax statement.

It's a government department. It'd be simple for them to check the previous years declared income via tax. If you've got a load of undeclared income they'd probably ask why.

 

[Silas Loom]

It's a government department. It'd be simple for them to check the previous years declared income via tax. If you've got a load of undeclared income they'd probably ask why.

Departments have been failing to centralise or to cooperate on fraud and error for years, so it’s reasonable to assume that this would be a Home Office operation with limited ability to access HMRC records unless a criminal investigation was launched.

There is loads of available expertise in fraud and error identification regarding statements of income, though, because all local authorities need this capability and many buy it in, so fairly easy to mobilise it or scale up.

 

[Whagwan]

In addition, people on spouse visas already have to pay a £500/yr NHS surcharge and have "no recourse to public funds"

 

[story]

It’s not about how to game the system.

No doubt some people will find ways to do that. Probably people traffickers and drug dealer mostly.

The policy is inherently hateful and ugly and most of those who fall foul of it will be shut out of any access to immigration.

 

[Brayfart]

That only shows PAYE income though, no? I could in practice have lots of gig economy jobs, which would only be brought together via a self-assessment tax statement.

Bank statements can show your income, but that includes income from whatever sources happen to flow to that bank account. And it’s a gross income, not a net income. If I borrow £5000 and then pay it back, the bank statement will prove I received a £5000 income.

Bank statements also show where money comes from don't they? Wherever I've worked my wages have always had a company name next to them whereas if it's from my mum it says her name and is obviously not wages.

 

[MickiQ]

A lot of it is going to come down to the discretion of the immigration official making the decision isn't it? If you're on £45K a year and comfortably over the threshold any application is getting rubber stamped. If you're on £25K a year then its going straight in the bin on the grounds that you're too poor to be happy. Peeps who can just about squeeze over the threshold with a bit of creative accounting, its basically going to come down to which side of the bed your case officer got out of bed that morning and how deep into your finances they're willing to dig.

 

[Silas Loom]

A lot of it is going to come down to the discretion of the immigration official making the decision isn't it? If you're on £45K a year and comfortably over the threshold any application is getting rubber stamped. If you're on £25K a year then its going straight in the bin on the grounds that you're too poor to be happy. Peeps who can just about squeeze over the threshold with a bit of creative accounting, its basically going to come down to which side of the bed your case officer got out of bed that morning and how deep into your finances they're willing to dig.

This, in a nutshell.

 

[MickiQ]

It’s not about how to game the system.

No doubt some people will find ways to do that. Probably people traffickers and drug dealer mostly.

The policy is inherently hateful and ugly and most of those who fall foul of it will be shut out of any access to immigration.

I think we're all of one mind there it's a shit idea from an even shittier Govt.

 

[kabbes]

Bank statements also show where money comes from don't they? Wherever I've worked my wages have always had a company name next to them whereas if it's from my mum it says her name and is obviously not wages.

I’m pretty sure that the government will not want to deny the spouse of somebody with £50,000 in income from their trust fund and BTL portfolio. All of which will potentially appear to just come from personal bank accounts.