[SlightlyConfusedBrit]

Hi all!
I would be very grateful for some advice on my situation. I am currently in the process of applying for the 820 partner visa with my British born (but Australian citizen by descent) partner of 2.5 years.

I am currently completing 47SP online and am at the stage where I need to input details about countries I have lived in/visited for the past 10 years. The problem is, I actually lived and worked in Spain for 6 months in 2015, so I would classify this as more than a 'visit', however it is under the 12 months specified time frame.

I also worked three winter seasons beginning in 2012 and ending in 2016, working in the same ski resort in Andorra (tiny European country, borders with Spain) from the months of November to March/April and leaving in the summers inbetween (comes up as under 11 months non-consecutive in total)
Again, as I lived and worked in this country but for under 12 months in total, so should I choose to list it as a country I have visited, or a country I have lived in (thus overlooking the 12 month time limit)?

The same situation applies to my SO who lived in Spain on-off for a period of about 7 years (DJ in Ibiza ) and also in Andorra for 4 months, where we met in 2015.

Any insight on this would be greatly appreciated!

 

[eljaleo]

I applied for a different visa (482) but was in a somewhat similar situation. In the past ten years, I have lived for twelve months or more in two countries (UK and Hong Kong) but have lived for less than twelve months in several others. I also have not really properly lived in my home country, the USA, in the past ten years, but visit a lot and have crossed the cumulative 12 month threshold in the past decade.


I listed all the times I visited the US (which took forever!), as well as my periods of residence in the UK and HK, under places I have lived. I included countries I lived in for less than a year as places I visited. I also submitted a document outlining my ten year travel history (as the application listed as an option) which clarified when I'd been studying somewhere, just visiting, or doing some other activity. For the health examination, I had to list where I'd lived for three months or more in the past five years, but this didn't affect where I needed clearances from.


When I submitted the application, it automatically asked for police clearances from the places I listed as having lived in for 12 months or more. So if you ignore the 12 month rule and list yourself as having lived in Spain, you'll be creating more work for yourself.

 

[SlightlyConfusedBrit]

Hi Eljaleo, thanks so much for the advice! Definitely has set my mind at rest.
Great idea about the separate document listing our travel history, will definitely start creating a similar doc.
How did you go with exact dates of travel, etc? There's no way in hell I will be able to remember the exact day of travel between countries but I can remember the months.

 

[eljaleo]

It was quite an undertaking, it took me about four hours and a lot of frustration. But I managed to get it done by:


1. Logging into the Facebook account I had deactivated in 2013. I took a lot of holidays with friends from 2007 - 2012, so I was able to look at when people uploaded photos to get a vague idea of when we took a trip.


2. Looking at passport stamps. This is of course only helpful for certain kinds of travel (not within Schengen zone) and I only have my old passports going up to the 2009 on hand.


3. Searching my email for flight itineraries. I used my uni email until 2011 and then lost all access, so anything before 2011 I couldn't find. Otherwise I was able to pull up most flights, which was super helpful for exact dates.


When I couldn't remember or figure out exact dates, I entered things like this:


March 2012: holiday to Germany (less than one week)

June 2012: day trip to Luxembourg

late September - early November 2012: visited family in USA (approx. two weeks)



It's a huge pain but take a deep breath and go about it methodically, and you'll get it done!