British Expatriate Network

Hello All! I'm a nurse awaiting my Phase I approval. I passed my NCLEX exam back in August and my green card application went in in August. This whole process has taken forever and I would love to hear your experiences of waiting for your green card, and any encouragement you can give me. I am heartily fed up with waiting, as this process started in November 2001. roll

Ooohh, hello Rockgurl!

Can't help you with your question I'm afraid, but welcome to Britnet and hope to welcome you to CT in the near future! Have you an idea of where in CT you will be moving to? I used to work in the NHS and speaking to my old colleagues when I was back home made me realise I had made the right move. It's just not the same now, sadly.

Debs x smile

Hello there.

Sorry, can't help either -we're waiting for our greencards too. Just watch out for that CT lot -they have been known to kidnap Brits on arrival and force them to party. lol

About a year . . .with the help of his company, from a L1 visa . . .

Are you lot in CT currently running a recruitment drive in the UK for expats (preferably from Nottingham) to come and work in CT????? Or something? roll

HI Debs and all, thanx for replying. I'll hopefully be moving to somewhere near Hartford but I won't know until I get my approval. It's nice to know there are others waiting for their green card too. I just wish I could be waiting for it in the states as I miss my partner...it sucks being apart. wink

Hi Rockgurl and welcome!

I think you'll get a wide variety of answers to your question. My green card took five months but there are lots others who waited for a longer or shorter time than I did.

Thanx Nicholas. 5 months is great..lucky you! How long did it take for you to get your interview after your Phase I approval and how soon did you travel? I passed my exam in August but apparently some people who passed it in October have already received their approval, wheras others who passed in January last year are still waiting..this is so unfair! evil

You need to check out processing times for the same petition that you have had filed for you, and the office that it was filed in. If you have an "notification of action", it may have a case number that you check online at http://www.ins.gov You can also check out some of the immigration attorney websites as they tend to keep up to date with processing times. A good website is http://www.shusterman.com .

Once your petition is approved, it generally takes London about 6 weeks to process the visa.

If you are really desperate to get to the US within a certain timeframe, you have the option of getting a fiancé visa - this would take about 3 months to process - and you have to marry the petitioner within 3 months of arriving in the US.

Thank you Ameriscot! I really appreciate that. If the process times are accurate then I do indeed expect the approval sometime this month or next, as I was advised between 90-180 days, and so far it's been about 130. I wasn't sure if one could rely on advised processing times or not. I do have an INS number but on the website it just tells me that it is pending and gives the timeframe. 6 weeks is really quick...cripes! I better start packing! eek I have a whole house to organize and rent out. Incidently...anyone have any experience of renting out their house?

Thanks for the advice about the fiance visa, but I am not eligible for that. If I had been I would have done that first! It would have been a lot easier! roll

Yep, we are renting out our house. I'd be happy to share our experiences with you. grin

Please do! I would love some advice on this as I've never done it before. Did you have to change your mortgage to a Buy To Let? The other thing I would like advice on is what to do about tax, back accounts etc. I want to keep my English bank account in order to collect the rent money my tenants will pay in order to make the payments to my mortgage. What happens to your tax status when you emigrate? Does it affect the money you get from rent and is that taxable? Should I get a financial advisor/accountant to take care of all that? What about house insurance and outstanding loans/credit cards etc.? The more one looks into this the more complicated it gets! eek

We just kept our mortgages as they were - informed the bank of our change of address and they weren't fussed. I think you need to double check the fine-print, but there was nothing in ours stopping us from letting.

You will need an agent to work with your tenants and deal with anything that needs to be done in the house. If you are using a licensed agent (say, instead of a relative), then they are governed by certain rules from the Inland Revenue. An overseas landlord is supposed to have tax deducted straight from the rent, but there is a form that the agent can send to the Revenue that exempts you from this. Basically, you do this if you aren't making any profit from the house. You'll need to file a UK tax return every year to reflect the rental income, but you don't need to include US earnings as you are not ordinarily resident. The UK taxes are really straightforward. It's the US ones that are interesting (in a good way, as you can claim your UK mortgage interest and depreciation on your house).

You can keep your UK bank account, but make sure you have internet access so that you can check it from the US. It's best to set this up while you are still in the UK as they don't make it easy to open accounts from overseas. Your agent can deposit the money in your account, after deducting his fee and any expenses.

You'll need to keep up your house insurance. If you are renting unfurnished, you just have to pay buildings insurance (the insurance company probably has a special coverage for absentee landlords - ours did); whoever owns the furniture will pay the contents insurance.

Any outstanding loans you have can be paid out of your bank account. You really don't have to do anything special for these except give them a change of address. Obviously you'll need to have enough money in your account to cover these and can easily transfer money from the US to the UK on a regular basis to cover any shortfall from your rental income. It's best to talk with your US banker to set this up in the most cost effective and efficient way. You'll find that you are left with just a handful of really predictable transactions in your UK account that it will be very easy to keep track.

It does seem complicated at first, but once you break it down into the small parts and deal with each one, it becomes very manageable. Although we love our house and can't wait to get back to it, we are really emotionally detatched from it while it's being rented. If something gets damaged, it's really just down to money - and between the tenant's deposit, insurance tax deductions and depreciation, it works out fine. Our house is in a severe flood warning area (Staines/Egham) and we are really not fussed about it for some reason.

Thanx again Ameriscot. Doesn't your mortgage company expect you to live in your property or is it legit to live abroad and rent out as part of your mortgage agreement? How can I file a tax report from the States? I've never done one in my life! Will I have to appoint an accountant? What about repairs and upkeep? Will the tenancy agent deal with this? Sorry to ask so many questions but there are so many things to think about and I have never done any of this before. It's so helpful to speak to others who have done it.

No they don't, but you should check the fine print of your mortgage. You need to give them a change of address, so they will know that you aren't living there. It didn't faze our mortgage lender (Midland Bank) when we did this.

Same way as you would in the UK. You get the forms you need (either by contacting your tax office or by downloading from their website. You fill 'em in and pop them in the post. It's a bit tricky in the first year because you are part-year resident, but it's not overly hard if you've been good with your records.

It's probably not necessary for the UK side of things. Even when you have an accountant, you still have to do a lot of the work yourself (record keeping etc.) and if you get your tax return in before the end of September, the IR will calculate everything for you. It's a good idea to have your US taxes professionally prepared, at least in the first couple of years. After that, you can just copy what they did.

Your agent will handle everything to do with the house and the tenants. He will simply deduct any repair expenses from the rent before depositing it in your bank. You can agree up front what sort of things he should not bother you with and what sort of things need your agreement before proceeding. You can do all this by email, so make sure the agent you appoint is computer savvy.

When you leave your house, the agent takes care of everything from that point. They do all the meter readings and notify the gas & electricity suppliers etc. They can arrange for the house to be cleaned, painted and for the garden to be done. If you have a mind to delegate fully (obviously at a cost) to the agent, the stress just vanishes.

No problems - ask as many questions as you like!