UK Visas for Adult Dependent Relatives
If you are concerned that a parent or close relative is getting increasingly frail or does not have the necessary support network in their home country, you may want to explore the Adult Dependent Relative Visa so they can join you in the UK.
In this article, our UK Immigration Solicitors explain the criteria for a UK Adult Dependent Relative Visa and the application process.
Contact OTS Solicitors for immigration legal advice.
Dependent Relative Visas for adults
The Adult Dependent Relative Visa is a type of Family Visa for adults who are not spouses or partners (and therefore eligible for a Spouse Visa or Unmarried Partner Visa) or the dependents of those in the UK on work or other visas.
Adult Dependent Relative Visa or Visitor Visa
An Immigration Lawyer can advise you on whether a Family Visa or a Visitor Visa is the best option for your relative. The best visa route will depend on their planned length of stay and the reasons for it.
If you want your relative to visit you to see if they like the UK and want to move to live with you, then a Visitor Visa is the more appropriate visa route. However, your relative will need to leave the UK before their Visitor Visa expires and apply for their Adult Dependent Relative Visa from overseas, as they cannot switch from a Visitor Visa to an Adult Dependent Relative Visa from within the UK.
Sponsorship and the Adult Dependent Relative Visa
To qualify as the sponsor of an adult dependent relative, you must either be a British citizen (by birth or application) or be settled in the UK. Indefinite Leave to Remain status and refugee status both count as UK settlement.
An EEA national with limited leave to remain is a settled person, but their relative’s visa will be limited to the duration of their leave.
If you are unsure if you are classed as settled in the UK, our UK Immigration Lawyers can advise on your immigration status and any preliminary steps you may need to take to obtain settled status.
The eligibility criteria for the Adult Dependent Relative Visa
The visa applicant and their sponsor in the UK must both be over the age of 18, and the relative must fall within one of these categories of relationship to their sponsor:
- Parent.
- Brother or sister.
- Adult child.
- Grandparent.
If the relative is a parent or grandparent, the immigration rules are complicated. A parent or grandparent must not be in an ongoing relationship with a partner unless the partner is also the sponsor’s parent or grandparent and is also applying for a visa to come to the UK.
The Home Office will not extend the scope of the relationship, even if a sponsor has a compelling argument that extended family members deserve assistance, such as an aunt who raised the sponsor and, therefore, the sponsor feels obligated to provide care for them.
Dependency and the Adult Dependent Relative Visa
The Adult Dependent Relative Visa has very restrictive criteria. The relative:
- Must require long-term personal care
- As a result of their age, disability or illness
- And be unable to obtain adequate care in their home country.
The dependency threshold is set high because to qualify for this type of Family Visa, the applicant’s care needs must be such that they can only reasonably and adequately be met in the UK.
A visa application is unlikely to be successful if the relative could have their personal care needs met in their home country, either through the UK sponsor's financial support, their relatives' practical organisation, admission to a care home, or the provision of supported accommodation.
Requirement for personal care
The requirement for personal care must be linked to the visa applicant’s age, disability or illness. Therefore, an adult child with a learning disability may qualify for the visa or a parent and likewise a grandparent who is frail due to their age or because of a health condition.
Evidence of the requirement for personal care is the key to a successful visa application. An applicant and their sponsor need to evidence:
- The applicant’s personal care needs.
- The reasons why the applicant cannot meet their care needs.
Personal care includes dressing, bathing, feeding, and cooking, as well as assistance with moving around the home or outside, such as bed-to-chair transfers.
Many sponsors make assumptions about the Adult Dependent Relative Visa application process and believe that providing a birth certificate showing that a grandparent is age 91 or medical evidence that an adult child has a severe learning disability or that a parent has been diagnosed with early-onset dementia is sufficient evidence for the visa application.
Experienced Adult Dependent Relative Visa Solicitors say that the Home Office will not make assumptions. Caseworkers will require evidence that a 91-year-old cannot care for themselves or how a diagnosed learning disability affects a relative's ability to meet their own personal care needs. A sponsor will therefore need to take immigration legal advice on the evidence required. In these scenarios, it may involve a birth certificate, a medical diagnosis from a qualified doctor, and a report from a nurse or occupational therapist on the specific personal care tasks the applicant cannot manage and the consequences of the relative not receiving the required level of personal care, such as dehydration and the relative being at an increased risk of falls.
Adequate care in the home country
To qualify for an Adult Dependent Relative Visa, an applicant must be unable to have their reasonable personal care needs met to an adequate standard in their home country.
The Home Office is entitled to consider the availability of care in the applicant’s home country, whether through state care, privately funded care, nursing home care, care at home packages, or care provided by relatives and friends.
If privately funded personal care is available in the home country and the sponsor is offering to provide a home and financial support for their relative in the UK, the Home Office is entitled to ask why the sponsor cannot pay for the available adequate care in the applicant’s home country.
To stand the best chance of visa approval, a sponsor cannot base the application on the applicant preferring to live with their sponsoring relative, or on the sponsor feeling obligated to provide care in the UK rather than pay for care overseas.
State support in the UK for those entering the UK on Adult Dependent Relative Visas
The immigration rules state that a sponsor of an adult dependent relative must be able to adequately maintain, accommodate, and care for their relative in the UK without recourse to public funds. In other words, a sponsor cannot expect their local authority to pay for their relative's care home fees or provide additional resources, such as extra housing benefit, because the sponsor requires additional room to house the relative.
Unlike the Spouse Visa or the Unmarried Partner Visa, the applicant or their sponsor does not need to meet a specified minimum financial requirement. Instead, an adequate maintenance test is used.
The adequate maintenance test assesses the sponsor’s financial position and compares it with state benefit income support levels for a household. The sponsor's income needs to exceed that threshold.
As part of the application process, a sponsor must undertake to pay for the visa applicant’s care, maintenance and accommodation for five years. The period is reduced if the sponsor has limited leave to remain for less than five years.
Applying for an Adult Dependent Relative Visa
Applications for the Adult Dependent Relative Visa are made online while the visa applicant is overseas. Most visa applicants, due to their age, health, or disability, require substantial support from their sponsor to complete the application and gather the necessary evidence.
The application process involves:
- Online application.
- Biometric appointment for the visa applicant in their home country.
- Home Office decision.
The key to a successful Adult Dependent Relative Visa application is the quality of evidence provided in support of the application. Applicants and their sponsors should not assume that the Home Office will take submissions in the application at face value or make logical deductions.
For example, the sponsor of an adult child may think that a letter saying their learning-disabled child is functioning at the age of a six-year-old is sufficient evidence of the requirement for personal care. However, the sponsor should also obtain evidence that their child is unable to meet their personal care needs and that those needs cannot be met in their home country. That’s because the Home Office will not make follow-up deductions or grant the visa application on the compassionate ground that the child would be better cared for by their parent.
Evidence for an Adult Dependent Relative Visa application
Most evidence gathering for the Adult Dependent Relative Visa is undertaken by the sponsor or extended family in the applicant’s home country. It is essential to provide evidence for every aspect, rather than assuming that Home Office officials will be sympathetic to a relative's plight without providing the caseworker with the evidence to grant the visa.
The evidence required for the Adult Dependent Relative Visa normally includes:
- The applicant and the sponsors' birth certificates and any other evidence to demonstrate that their relationship falls within the eligibility criteria.
- Medical evidence outlining the applicant’s health or disability and how the applicant’s age, health or disability affects them and their ability to carry out their own personal care.
- Any additional evidence about the difficulties experienced by the applicant in meeting their personal care needs. For example, an occupational therapist's report or details of hospital admissions due to falls or inadequate nutrition.
- Evidence on available personal care in the home country and the reasons why it is not adequate.
- An explanation, together with evidence, of why any previous personal care arrangements have failed or cannot be reactivated and why financial support in the home country provided by the sponsor will not give the relative with adequate personal care.
- Evidence that the sponsor meets the adequate maintenance threshold.
Length of UK stay on an Adult Dependent Relative Visa.
Most sponsors are anxious about the length of the Adult Dependent Relative Visa because they do not want to uproot their relative if the visa is short-term or if there is a risk that visa extension applications will be refused.
The length of the Adult Dependent Relative Visa depends on the sponsor's immigration status in the UK. If a sponsor is a British citizen or settled in the UK (for example, with Indefinite Leave to Remain), their relative will usually be granted Indefinite Leave to Enter the UK. This means there is no requirement to make visa extension applications. However, the Home Office could curtail the relative’s permission to live in the UK if a subsequent investigation revealed the relative did not have the personal care needs detailed in the visa application.
The relatives of EEA nationals who have limited leave to remain will be granted visas limited to the duration of their sponsor’s limited leave.
Do you need an immigration solicitor to apply for an adult dependent relative visa?
The Adult Dependent Relative Visa has complex eligibility criteria and has a high Home Office refusal rate. If you want to stand the best chance of successfully obtaining the visa, and without the hassle and time involved in a fresh application or an appeal, it is probably in your interests to instruct an Immigration Solicitor with expertise and experience in these types of Family Visa applications.
Why does the Home Office refuse Adult Dependent Relative Visa applications?
Visa applicants and their UK sponsors often do not appreciate the need to support their applications with high-quality evidence. Alternatively, a sponsor may provide satisfactory evidence of their relative’s medical condition and requirement for personal care, but not fully explain why the relative cannot receive the care they need in their home country. A statement that the applicant cannot afford personal care or that it is not of sufficiently high standard will not be accepted without the evidence to back it up.
Specialist Immigration Lawyers can help ensure you gather all the correct information and as much supporting evidence as possible before submitting the application to the Home Office. Immigration solicitors stress that just because a parent is in their 80s, the Home Office will not automatically assume that the parent has long-term personal care needs that they cannot meet themselves. Equally, an applicant cannot expect the Home Office to understand that quality care is unavailable in a specified country, as each application must be supported by evidence.
The options if an Adult Dependent Relative Visa application is refused
If a dependent relative needs help and care, the applicant and sponsor are likely to be devastated by a Home Office refusal. The applicant can consider:
- Applying for a different type of visa, such as a Visitor Visa.
- Making a second application that addresses the reasons why the first application was refused
- Appealing the decision to refuse the visa.
Visitor Visas are short-term, and a series of Visitor Visa applications cannot be used to enable a relative to live in the UK. For more information on the Visitor Visa, have a read of our Guide.
To appeal against an Adult Dependent Relative Visa refusal, you need to be able to show that the Home Office mistook the facts surrounding the application (for example, the Home Office official thought the applicant was 60 and not 90) or the Home Office got the law wrong when applying it to the circumstances of the applicant.
There is a deadline for submitting an immigration appeal, so if you are considering one, you should contact specialist Immigration Lawyers in London as soon as your application is refused.
In some cases, an appeal may not proceed to an immigration tribunal hearing because the Home Office, upon receiving your appeal paperwork, may be persuaded to review its decision and grant the visa.
If you decide to reapply for the visa instead of appealing, you must address the reasons for the first visa application refusal. Otherwise, the second application is also highly likely to be refused by a Home Office official.
Adult Dependent Relative Visa immigration advice
OTS Solicitors are recommended in the UK leading UK law directories for their specialist immigration law advice and receive excellent client reviews. We provide friendly, efficient legal advice on Adult Dependent Relative Visa applications and pay close attention to detail to ensure your application has the best chance of success.
Our Adult Dependent Relative Visa Solicitors can help you with:
- Advice on whether a relative meets the eligibility criteria for the Adult Dependent Relative Visa, advice on evidence gathering and the best evidence based on the applicant’s circumstances.
- Advice on alternatives to the Adult Dependent Relative Visa.
- Careful preparation of the application and submission of the visa application to the Home Office.
- Advice on the options if an Adult Dependent Relative Visa has been refused or rejected.
- Appeals against refusal of an Adult Dependent Relative Visa application.
Contact OTS Solicitors for immigration legal advice.
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