Proof of Funds (London Visa Office)

[Danny03]

I am currently in the process of collecting the information required for the FSW stage one application and have seen I need to provide proof of funds.Originally I visited the London Visa website and printed off the visa office specific forms. We where under the impression that our house valuation would be considered as proof of funds with our liquid assets.
I have checked back with the london visa website recently and seen that the original links have now disappeared and the download for the personal worth statement with the accompanying assets statement download have gone with links to the main CIC site in their place and no mention of being able to use our house as proof of funds !.

Can anyone clarify the issue with me please as we where looking to send our application off in June. I was original going to get three estate agent valuations as proof and send that with my application.

 

[Cappuccino]

I am currently in the process of collecting the information required for the FSW stage one application and have seen I need to provide proof of funds.Originally I visited the London Visa website and printed off the visa office specific forms. We where under the impression that our house valuation would be considered as proof of funds with our liquid assets.
I have checked back with the london visa website recently and seen that the original links have now disappeared and the download for the personal worth statement with the accompanying assets statement download have gone with links to the main CIC site in their place and no mention of being able to use our house as proof of funds !.

Can anyone clarify the issue with me please as we where looking to send our application off in June. I was original going to get three estate agent valuations as proof and send that with my application.

Hi Danny.

We are London FSW1 applicants, and we used ONLY house valuation as our proof of funds with our initial application to CIO last August (2010). We sent 3 estate agent valuations including the business card of the consultant doing the valuation, and 1 mortgage letter showing how much we owed on the property - the difference being the equity we held.

Our application passed CIO eligibility review fine, we got our PER and the application was sent to CHC London, all without any bank statements. So from that point of view I can confirm that an application for CHC London is fine to include 3 estate agents valuations and a mortgage letter (unless you own the house outright in which case I'd send a copy of the completion letter or house deeds if there are any).

Since then we have also been saving up additional funds in a bank account and last month had enough to more than cover our minimum funds, even without our house equity. We'd mainly done this so that we could complete our record of landing without having to sell the house first (even though we will sell the house before fully settling over there).

But since we had the dosh we sent the bank statements off to CHC London as additional proof of funding anyway, figuring extra proof wouldn't hurt.

At no point have we completed a personal net worth statement, nor have we been asked for any proof of debts etc. Although the proof of funds we have sent is over 3 times more than the minimum required.

Hope this info helps!
Wayne.

 

[Danny03]

Thank you for the quick reply wayne, was a bit worried things had changed. Was worried ill have to find 13 grand then pronto . Anyhow off to the estate agents to get the valuations

Again thanks

 

[Cappuccino]

Thank you for the quick reply wayne, was a bit worried things had changed. Was worried ill have to find 13 grand then pronto . Anyhow off to the estate agents to get the valuations

Again thanks

We only sent bank statements last month as a precautionary measure because we had the money saved up anyway. At no point have CHC London asked for any additional proof of funds from us - so I believe that 3 estate agents quotations + mortgage statement is adequate proof of funding! I would advise as well as the original estate agent letters, to also try to get a business card from the valuer and attach that to the quotation.

I have heard that people who have shown property as proof of funds have been asked to show proof of how they will pay for the rest of the process (RPRF and medicals etc) by CHC London later on. So you may have to show a small proof of liquid funds later on, but I don't think they will ask for the entire 13 grand until completing your record of landing.

Best of luck with it!
Wayne.

 

[Mezo2009]

Great and well done Wayne and thanks to share your experience.

We've been debating the validity of house valuation as POF and there are so many arguments and views on this matter, with few evidences to prove its validity. I hope this policy of CIC remains unchanged so people can benefit from it.

Cheers

Hi Danny.

We are London FSW1 applicants, and we used ONLY house valuation as our proof of funds with our initial application to CIO last August (2010). We sent 3 estate agent valuations including the business card of the consultant doing the valuation, and 1 mortgage letter showing how much we owed on the property - the difference being the equity we held.

Our application passed CIO eligibility review fine, we got our PER and the application was sent to CHC London, all without any bank statements. So from that point of view I can confirm that an application for CHC London is fine to include 3 estate agents valuations and a mortgage letter (unless you own the house outright in which case I'd send a copy of the completion letter or house deeds if there are any).

Since then we have also been saving up additional funds in a bank account and last month had enough to more than cover our minimum funds, even without our house equity. We'd mainly done this so that we could complete our record of landing without having to sell the house first (even though we will sell the house before fully settling over there).

But since we had the dosh we sent the bank statements off to CHC London as additional proof of funding anyway, figuring extra proof wouldn't hurt.

At no point have we completed a personal net worth statement, nor have we been asked for any proof of debts etc. Although the proof of funds we have sent is over 3 times more than the minimum required.

Hope this info helps!
Wayne.

 

[Cappuccino]

Great and well done Wayne and thanks to share your experience.

We've been debating the validity of house valuation as POF and there are so many arguments and views on this matter, with few evidences to prove its validity. I hope this policy of CIC remains unchanged so people can benefit from it.

Cheers

As far as I am aware, CHC London have pretty much always accepted property as proof of funding, so I see no reason for that to change.

If your money is tied up in your house, it is completely unreasonable of CIC to expect you to sell your house and live out of a cardboard box for 12 to 18 months whilst your visa gets approved - baring in mind there is no guarantee of even getting the visa. I don't really understand why not all visa offices accept property as initial proof of funding, but it seems to vary from visa office to visa office.

We made a decision that we would not put our house up for sale until the medicals had gone through ok, since then we're in a position of probably being 99.9% certain of getting the visa. As things stand we will probably be putting our house up for sale at the end of next month.

Wayne.

 

[nashe_31]

I also had to ask the same thing, which is quite clear now Thanks to Cappuccino & Mezo.
I am a Pakistani National and planning to launch my App this may, 2011 Inshallah, definitly through London VO. Just wanted to ask that what should i show them besides the evaluation and quotations,
1. means should i send them the notarized copy of my ownership documents???
2. And what if the house is registered on my mother's name (he is not added in PR application) Should i get it registered on my name?
3. and if it is a plot instead of a built house is this the same case?

Please reply, and i will be obliged if i could get ur email address, (Cappuccino & Mezo)

 

[canada_future]

As far as I am aware, CHC London have pretty much always accepted property as proof of funding, so I see no reason for that to change.

If your money is tied up in your house, it is completely unreasonable of CIC to expect you to sell your house and live out of a cardboard box for 12 to 18 months whilst your visa gets approved - baring in mind there is no guarantee of even getting the visa. I don't really understand why not all visa offices accept property as initial proof of funding, but it seems to vary from visa office to visa office.

We made a decision that we would not put our house up for sale until the medicals had gone through ok, since then we're in a position of probably being 99.9% certain of getting the visa. As things stand we will probably be putting our house up for sale at the end of next month.

Wayne.

Hi Wayne,
Did you pay the estate agents to get the quotations or you got them without any fee?
Besides that, is it a quotation or it is a property valuation conducted by any independent property valuer?

Thanks

 

[Cappuccino]

I also had to ask the same thing, which is quite clear now Thanks to Cappuccino & Mezo.
I am a Pakistani National and planning to launch my App this may, 2011 Inshallah, definitly through London VO. Just wanted to ask that what should i show them besides the evaluation and quotations,
1. means should i send them the notarized copy of my ownership documents???
2. And what if the house is registered on my mother's name (he is not added in PR application) Should i get it registered on my name?
3. and if it is a plot instead of a built house is this the same case?

Please reply, and i will be obliged if i could get ur email address, (Cappuccino & Mezo)

I think the situation may be different if you are applying through London office from another country such as Pakistan. For UK residents it is a small and easy matter to check the land registry to confirm that you indeed own the property. But since they cannot do this for outland applicants proving you own the house may be more complex.

Property in your mother's name (and why are you referring to your mother as a "he"? cannot be used as proof of funds. It must be in the name of the principal applicant or the principal applicant's accompanying spouse. Not sure it's as simple as "get it registered in your name" since you need to OWN it.

Anyway, I'd suggest you try to seek advice specifically from someone from your country who has done this - since I feel it is more complicated than someone who is applying from the UK.

Best of luck,
Wayne.

 

[Cappuccino]

Hi Wayne,
Did you pay the estate agents to get the quotations or you got them without any fee?
Besides that, is it a quotation or it is a property valuation conducted by any independent property valuer?

Thanks

There is no fee for the house valuations from estate agents. Please bare in mind they want to be the ones to sell your house (for which there of course IS a fee if they manage to sell it) so they would be very uncompetitive if they started charging just for the quotations.

Used 3 different estate agent companies and calculated the average of the 3 valuations when calculating our proof of funding in our initial application. As I said since then we have provided bank statements of the savings we've made during our application process as additional proof of funding.

Wayne.

 

[ammaartahir]

I also had to ask the same thing, which is quite clear now Thanks to Cappuccino & Mezo.
I am a Pakistani National and planning to launch my App this may, 2011 Inshallah, definitly through London VO. Just wanted to ask that what should i show them besides the evaluation and quotations,
1. means should i send them the notarized copy of my ownership documents???
2. And what if the house is registered on my mother's name (he is not added in PR application) Should i get it registered on my name?
3. and if it is a plot instead of a built house is this the same case?

Please reply, and i will be obliged if i could get ur email address, (Cappuccino & Mezo)

Bro, I was in your situation when I was in the process of preparing the application for the PR. Well, what I discovered was that in order to transfer a house in another person's name in Pakistan costs around 8-10% of the property's value, even if the house is in your father/mother's name. Since the transfer fee was too much (just calculate in your case), I had to sell some of my assets and deposit the amount in my bank account. Since then (about 8 months have passed), the amount is in my bank account. And to be very honest, I am upset about it; I don't know any reason why I can't use that amount, even if I could've invested the amount somewhere else. Well, the rules are rules and you have to live by them! Well, property evaluation is definitely accepted in the London VO but only if the property is in the name of the Principal applicant/accompanying spouse.

Regards,

Ammaar

 

[Cappuccino]

Bro, I was in your situation when I was in the process of preparing the application for the PR. Well, what I discovered was that in order to transfer a house in another person's name in Pakistan costs around 8-10% of the property's value, even if the house is in your father/mother's name. Since the transfer fee was too much (just calculate in your case), I had to sell some of my assets and deposit the amount in my bank account. Since then (about 8 months have passed), the amount is in my bank account. And to be very honest, I am upset about it; I don't know any reason why I can't use that amount, even if I could've invested the amount somewhere else. Well, the rules are rules and you have to live by them! Well, property evaluation is definitely accepted in the London VO but only if the property is in the name of the Principal applicant/accompanying spouse.

Regards,

Ammaar

The issue is that the funds have to be available if CHC request to see proof of them again prior to finalising your application. CHC London normally give 60 days notice.

Therefore you CAN invest the money elsewhere providing you can get it back into the bank in a readily transferrable state within 60 days. Since most people cannot be doing with that hassle they find it simpler to leave the money in their account until their case is finalised.

Wayne.

 

[ammaartahir]

The issue is that the funds have to be available if CHC request to see proof of them again prior to finalising your application. CHC London normally give 60 days notice.

Therefore you CAN invest the money elsewhere providing you can get it back into the bank in a readily transferrable state within 60 days. Since most people cannot be doing with that hassle they find it simpler to leave the money in their account until their case is finalised.

Wayne.

Wayne, the problem is that whenever they ask about the funds (mostly with medicals), they ask a bank statement of say 3/6 months. So if we have removed the amount in that very period, I guess, it could create a doubt in their minds whether the amount was ours or we had borrowed it for sometime and again when they have asked for the proof we might've borrowed the amount again and deposited into the account. Therefore, I reckon, we must keep the amount until our cases are finalized and avoid taking this risk. Btw, I have also heard that it is ok if we withdraw some amount after we've made the application and keep at least 70-80% of the required funds in our accounts?

 

[nashe_31]

Thanks Cappuccino & Ammar, for your reply, please affirm/verify my conclusion on the topic....

What i ve concluded by the discussion is, One can present his property valuation, as POF for PR, if it is registered in his own or his spouse’s name, and he is applying through London VO, as it is accepted but only by London VO.
And the applicant should be capable of liquidating/providing the POF incash at the last stages of Application.......

BTW the transfer of property is not an issue in my case as it has to be transferred in any case, i just didnt get it registered earlier coz i was unable to handle the transfer formalities, since i was out of country at that time.

Dear Ammar Bro, I am more than glad to have your reply, can i please have your email address, mine is nashe_3 1 @ y a h o o .com

Best regards,

 

[ammaartahir]

Thanks Cappuccino & Ammar, for your reply, please affirm/verify my conclusion on the topic....

What i ve concluded by the discussion is, One can present his property valuation, as POF for PR, if it is registered in his own or his spouse's name, and he is applying through London VO, as it is accepted but only by London VO.
And the applicant should be capable of liquidating/providing the POF incash at the last stages of Application.......

BTW the transfer of property is not an issue in my case as it has to be transferred in any case, i just didnt get it registered earlier coz i was unable to handle the transfer formalities, since i was out of country at that time.

Dear Ammar Bro, I am more than glad to have your reply, can i please have your email address, mine is nashe_3 1 @ y a h o o .com

Best regards,

Any time bro Check your inbox!