Girlfriend has only been in UK for one, how to we provide proof of residency?

That should read’ Girlfriend has only been in the UK for one week, how do we provide proof of where she lives’

One of the requirements of the marriage registrar is that myself and my girlfriend provide proof of where we live. I can do that no problem but she has no documents to prove she lives here at my address in the UK. They said she could provide a bank account statement, council tax bill etc. With her only being in the UK a short time that is impossible. For anyone who has been married to a Filipina not long after she arrived here, how did you get round this or what documentation did you provide?

@UKDJ will help with this

I guess it will depend upon how soon after arriving in the UK you intend to get married? My then Fiancee arrived in September 2018 and we married in January 2019 - four months later so well within the 6-month Fiancee Visa.

It is a long time ago for us, but I guess somewhere in the Fiancee Visa application there is a question about where you intend to live when you arrive in the UK...

Some of the first things we did after my Fiancee arrived in the UK were -

add her to utility bills;

open a bank account (in her Maiden name - changed to Married name soon after wedding).

I have had exactly the same problem since my wife arrived here, cannot open a bank account or even add her to mine without prove she lives at our address. I have finally got her names on my council tax bill but I applied for a provisional licence for here as it will have address on it. It’s worth the £34 to have an ID that lasts 10 years

We have tried this, my bank (HSBC) will do nothing without proof of where she is living.It was frustrating that my utility provider would not add her without prove of address ! I switched provider and started a new account with both of us listed

Have a chat with the registar as we got married with a marriage visit visa and sure they advised that for wife could do a statement that was staying with me. We couldnt do anything in terms of putting on bills (council tax may be different although as was on a visit visa advice was did need to be added) or opening bank account or registering for GP.

This site is quite helpful...

Also, probably not much help to you but for anyone else reading this, a good idea from that site is for the partner from phils to open a bank account with a bank that has a correspondent banking relationship with a bank in the UK before she arrives here... then she should be able to pop down to the UK Correspondent and open a bank a bank account there without too many problems - might need a fair bit of cash to do that.

An account with BPI and then BPI Europe might work as well.

Yeah it’s very frustrating, they want proof of address but don’t seem to understand that I can’t give them this unless a utility company, local council etc. is willing to give me that in the first place. Fortunately I managed to register with my GP practice then used this to provide proof of address, however it probably depends on which GP practice you try to register with, some will be more difficult than others. I’m with British Gas and it looks like they will put her on the gas bill. Dont bother trying to do this online you need to phone them and actually speak to a human being. As you say trying to open a bank account appears to be a waste of time, I tried this with Santander and the person I spoke to made it pretty clear they would not entertain this without proof of address. Council tax appears to be the same, although it may be worth phoning them and discussing your situation (again you need to actually speak to someone).

The marriage registrar said that if the owner of the property complied a letter to say that my fiancé was living there then they would accept this. I own my own house so I sent them a signed letter to say my fiancé was living in my property but of course they then backtracked and said this wasn’t acceptable. I take it what they actually wanted was a landlord giving them a letter to say my fiancé was living in his/her property but of of course this is only of any use if you happen to be renting the property you’re living in.

That's the problem when you're honest