I am applying for a family visa for my Ethiopian partner and I to move to the UK.
My partner moved in with me early January 2020. We will submit our application for the visa early October. It will take 3 months to process, so we should hear early January 2022 and so travel mid/late January.
I want to apply on the basis of having lived together 2 years, rather than as a fiancee, so that we get 2.5 years rather than 6 months. Also, we will have a baby mid-March, so don't want to be organizing a wedding, as the fiancee visa requires.
By the time our application is approved, we will have lived together 2 years - Jan 2020-2022. Is there any way we can apply in October, saying by the time we leave for the UK we'll have lived together 2 years? (If we apply January, we won't get approval until April.)
If not, and we enter on a fiancee basis (and so get 6 months), can we switch visa to one based on our living together for 2 years, once in the UK? Or switch to one based on that my partner is mother to a British citizen baby? (Much of the guidance says you have to leave the country and re-enter if your visa is 6 months or less, which seems to include our fiancee visa.)
Huge thanks