Residency Requirement in London?

[babyonboard 0]

Just wondering if anyone has experience filing in London for I-130/CR-1 immigrant visa without having lived in the UK for six months. We were advised to go ahead and submit our petition by the consular hotline and I will at least wait until I at get temporary leave to remain (permission to live in the UK for two years as married spouse of UK citizen), but will they accept a petition before I've lived here for six months? How is this 6 months residency requireent calculated?

I also read on the VJwiki that the London consulate could require a two-year residency - can anyone comment on this? Hopefully its not true! I have lived in Bolivia for three years so maybe I can explain why I didn't have permanent residency in the US either? And now that I am too pregnant to fly, I can't return to Bolivia to file DCF there.

Thanks for any and all advice and experience!

[AlexisT 0]

The Embassy advises that you have Indefinite Leave to Remain--yes, 2 years. I've heard of people getting in just under this, but not with less than 6 months residency.

If you don't have this you have to file through the US, the same way people do for countries that don't DCF.

[babyonboard 0]

The two-year extension to my UK fiancee visa is called "further leave to remain" (not indefinite leave to remain) is this acceptable then to the US embassy as part of my proof of 6-month residence or do I actually need to have lived here two years before submitting a DCF and once I've obtained Indefinite leave to remain.

thx

[AlexisT 0]

It's dicey. People have gotten in with FLR only, but not (IME) with having been resident less than a year.

[MargotDarko 0]

www.diveintoamerica.com is a good forum for USCs in the UK filing DCF.

Some of the information you've received here is incorrect. It used to be two-years residency and having to have ILR but even then some petitions were accepted with less. It is strange that someone on the hotline said to go ahead and send it in at less than six months. I would wait until you've been living there for at least six months. I would also include proof of your residence in the UK (even though the instructions say to only include what their list asks for) so that they don't come back saying that you have to file in the US because they don't consider you resident in the UK. Good things would be copies of council tax bills, UK bank account statements, utility bills, lease/mortgage, etc. Basically anything with your name and UK address on it that is "official".

Good news is that I have never heard of them taking your payment if they don't want to process your petition, so you don't have anything to lose by trying.

[AlexisT 0]

Hrm - when I did it earlier this year, they did say ILR specifically, but I just checked and they don't seem to specify that now...