Hi. My wife joined me in the UK during November 2014. Cecile is from Marikina and we were married in the Philippines. Cecile received her UK spouse visa in November. So we are now together and enjoying our time together. Getting out and seeing placing in London and watching Miss Saigon (a must see for Filipinos judging by how many were in the audience). But... on some days Cecile is a little bored at times. She needs to be able to chat to someone in Tagalog (time difference makes this difficult with friends and family back at home). We have looked for facebook groups etc but not seen anything local. Cecile is a 34 years old mum of four children. Fun loving, happy relaxed person. If there are any other members in a similar situation and not too far away then please let us know.
Hello Nimbus. Welcome to BF. You can use the User Map here to see members near your area. Just hover your mouse on "Members" and click the last option User Map. I, too, am new in the UK, just arrived Gloucester last September. I completely understand how your wife feels in getting a hold with relatives back home. You can also ask her to join the forum In my case, my visa status does not allow me to work so I spend most of my time at home. What I am doing at the moment is to learn how to bake and rule the kitchen
Welcome to British Filipino Nimbus, I can understand how your wife feels, some Filipinos find the transition of coming to the UK a little more difficult than others and often enjoy the company of their kabayan. I expect just like my wife she will bump into one or two of her fellow countrymen when she is least expecting it. My wife was coming home from the office on the Metro link a few weeks back in Manchester and she bumped into another Filipina. It quite amuses me when I am out with my wife and we see another Filipina walking towards us, you can see by the looks on their faces that they are both thinking "is she or isn't she"? then they usually end up saying "kabayan" to each other and smile. I am guessing that your wife will eventually meet up with fellow Filipinos in the same situation as herself, I hope that happens soon for you
My husband and I try to "spot" Filipinos when we go out. There was one time I asked my husband if the service crew in McDonald's is a kababayan, he said, "Nah. Chinese" until she dropped something and uttered "Ay" then both of us looked each other and unanimously said "Filipino"
Thanks for the map suggestion. I will click around and see if anyone is local. Yes i have told Cecile about the site. She feels the same way as most that it is good just to meet people naturally. but sometimes you need a little help. I will suggest she joins up as well. there are filipinos in town and a shop selling filipino food. Cecile was so happy to find Magic Sarap on sale there.
Thanks. The spouse visa went smoothly, no real issues. But the four visit visa refusals over three years was painful. Maybe it was a test of our relationship!
Welcome the forum Nimbus and thanks to Anne for pointing out the user map!! I counted 30 members in London but where I live there are no other members for many miles and very few Filipinos around. Is your wife's children with you in London?
welcome to the group Nimbus But the four visit visa refusals over three years was painful. blimey--that must be a record--can you say more about this ??
we live in uxbridge not far from Heathrow, I am sure my wife would enjoy a good natter in tagalog and as she has been here over 3 years she would give her the lowdown. Let me know is she is interested
Hi Nimbus and welcome Im fairly new to this site about 6 months, we will be applying for our spouse visa late March 2015 so would welcome any advice weve had some real good feedback so cfar but the more the better and your application was very recent.
The first refusal, i think, was because we didn't really complete all the forms correctly. I hadn't done any research into visas for filipinos. My only experience was as a British person, where we simply complete a form and get the visa. We did use a Manila Visa office to help us but they were pretty useless. They were paid up front and really didn't have a clue. The second refusal was quickly after. We answered their questions but the refusal was on the ground of lack of evidence that Cecile would go back to the Philippines after. About a year latter we applied again. And a year after that we applied again. The refusals were very quick, only a matter of days. I think because we messed up the first application all following applications are highly likely to be refusals. The forth application was huge with every detail of our lives in it. I had been to the Philippines around 15 or 20 times to see Cecile and we were engaged. I complained to my MP. My MP was very good and wrote to the UKBA. The UKBA wrote back an aggressive letter confirming it was a refusal. I spoke to my MP after and he said that i was certainly genuine but sometimes the girls are not, and this is why they refused. He was a little embarrassed to tell me this but i appreciated his honesty. Anyway maybe it was all for the best as our relationship has got stronger and we are very happy together. The spouse visa was straight forward as there is a list of required papers. Triple check you have all papers and submit everything. The visit visa does not have a list of required papers and just requests proof that the filipino will return home. This we found very difficult to do (even though Cecile was never going to overstay).
We were out at a 80's tribute band night yesterday, in a local Working Man's Club. Cecile was born in 1980 and so did not know many of the songs. Then she said i think those people over there are filipinos. One of them spoke to her in tagalog asking if she was a filipina. They are local nurses, or retired nurses, and Cecile spoke to them for some time. They swapped numbers and sent Facebook friend requests. So things are looking good!
Yes malchard she would be interested. But i do not know how best to make contact using this site. Do you know how?
Good luck with the application. We did use Harris & Co solicitors (Jay Baquiran) and found them excellent. The application forms are long and after all our visit visa refusals we really didn't want any more stress. If you have the time to spend downloading all the materials from UKBA website to see what papers you are required to send in then you can do this without a solicitor. But it does depend on what type of work you have / income you have. I have my own company and so needed to submit all company accounts, tax return, dividend payments, salary slips, VAT returns, bank statements etc. Then also my own tax return,bank statements, house details, house survey etc. I guess and overview is that the UKBA want to check that everything is genuine. So a trail of company profits, declared to HMRC/VAT, profits showing in company bank statements, then the dividend payments being paid out of the company bank account and into personal bank account. My tax return showing that i have declared the income etc etc. Then a house survey to show that the house is habitable and there is enough room for us. I used http://www.propertyinspectionreport.co.uk/ for my report and found them very good. The difficult bit at the end is trying to get all bank statements at the same time, get into the application pack. Then Fedex over to the Philippines and get submitted before the next months statement is due. If you can afford it i would use Jay or another experienced firm like them as the process is complex and it is too easy to miss one piece of paperwork. Cecile cried for a day after every refusal. I really didn't want to put her through that again with the spouse visa. GOOD LUCK!
