Hi, I'm Tom Bradford and in this video I'm going to show you how to fulfill the
financial requirements for an innovative visa. Now the easiest way to do this is
to have already invested your 50 thousand into your business in the UK or
to have had the funds transferred to a UK regulated bank but I've prepared this
diagram just to talk you through all the different possibilities I appreciate
that many of you or have your funds abroad and be ready to be transferred
once you're endorsed by Anand or Singh body that's fine but I want to highlight
a few things that you should avoid and basically how to go about this so I'm
gonna talk these through one by one let's make a start so this is all about
the innovative visa and how to show the 50,000 in this series and in the videos
I've got coming up I'm going to go into more details on the different
requirements you have to meet so the first way of showing that you meet the
requirements is if you are securing the funds from a UK organization employing
10 or more people. Now this is probably going to be rare
but some of you will have funds in the UK as I said this is this is possibly
the easiest way of demonstrating that they are available this sort of
situation would apply I've just got the relevant extract from the rules here
this would apply where for example you were getting a grant and that that may
be rare but in that sort of situation or if the endorsing body is providing funds
for you making funds available if and if they will say any of the funds are
available from a UK organisation which employs at least 10 people the applicant
must provide a letter from the organisation confirming this and that
letter must include a number of things I've just drawn a time line here to show
you how this works it's got to include a signed declaration from the funding
provider dated no earlier than three months before the date of the
application setting out how they know you the amount of funding they're making
available to you and confirmation that this funding
hasn't been promised to anyone else so
this isn't really going to apply to a situation where the funds are in a bank
a bank isn't really going to be confirming that sort of thing but if
there's a third party in the UK such as the endorsing body itself that's making
the funds available than they they can confirm that or if it was a if it was a
government grant or say venture capital being made available. Now this number two
is possibly a more common one this is a live stream so I'm just going to reverse
a bit bear with me so this is overseas
this is an overseas source of the funds or an individual. Now in this situation
have done another timeline here if the rules say if any of the funds are made
available from an overseas organization a UK organization which employs less
than ten people or an individual person so in the most obvious example this
could be a family member for example if the funds are being made available by a
family member which is permitted under the rules then this is what you have to
show so I've just drawn this out here so what you've got to have is a signed
declaration from the funding provider dated no earlier than three months
before the date of your application and it's got to set out again how they know
you the amount of funding they're making available to you and confirmation that
hasn't been promised to someone else. Now again this isn't something you can ask a
bank to provide this is going to be this is going to be an individual or another
business is making the funds available to you so there's the details they've
got to provide plus what you need here is a letter from a legal representative
confirming the declaration is a genuine one
the signature is genuine and a bank letter confirming the funds are held in
the regulated financial institution so this would be the bank letter from the
third parties bank and it's got to be dated no earlier than one month before
the date of the application and if they're outside of the UK the letter
must also confirmed that those funds are transferable to the UK. Now that is a
statement which from my experience few banks are willing to provide in other
words in confirmation the funds are transferable to the UK it does depend on
the bank remember that the bank has to be one that's recognised by the UK
government by the Home Office but some banks are reluctant to make any sort of
statement beyond the bank statements itself so you need need to have a think
about that first so we're going to go onto looking at the most the most easy
way of demonstrating that the funds are available
so just on a quick diagram here before you move on you just move back to that
part of the diagram you are on
so this is just my diagram showing what the letter has to show you can see that
here the requirement for a legal representative
and my timeline just showing that that less it's got to be one month before the
date of the application so here we are number three so this is if the funds
this is the scenario where the funds are helped by you so this in theory is the
most straightforward any of the funds that will say if any of the funds are
helped by the applicant it must provide either of the following so bank
statements showing the funds are held in the UK by an institution regulated by
the FCA they've got to cover three months ending
no earlier than one month before the date of the application so you can see
from my diagram here three months ending no earlier than one month before the
date of the application if these documents do not show the Afghans held
the funds for at least three months the Advocate must also provide a signed
declaration and letter from a legal representative I set out above so that
was the rule that I just illustrated. Now the the I think the the key issue here
is if you have the funds but you haven't had them for three months then the
question is should you wait or should you provide the evidence that's required
by the previous rule in other words it's securing the declaration plat from a
third party plus the legal representative and plus the bank letter
Now the difficulty with that is if they're helped by you in in a bank both
been for less than three months I find it difficult to believe that any bank
will provide that the third party letter in the terms set out under the rules and
there's there's a reason for that that lettis confirms things like that haven't
been promised to anyone else and they're being made available to thee and to the
applicant. Now that is not the language that a bank would would would use a bank
doesn't have any legal or beneficial entitlement to your funds it's in a
position that's analogous to a trustee so it's not going to be saying that
they're making your funds available to you that just doesn't work so there so
the third party letter is going to be from say another
individual or business. Now there could be from your business but if it's just
in a bank if you're only relying on 50k Plus that's in your bank account but
it's been in there for less than three months then it would be easier for a
third party to have those funds and confirmed they're making them available
to you because in that case there's no requirement for them being held for
three months then asking a bank your own bank to confirm the funds are being made
available to you so I think you've probably got two options if you've had
the funds but you've got had them for less than three months one is to simply
wait for the remainder of the time. Now if you are getting endorsed remember if
you get the endorsement that you've still got three months before you
actually have to make your visa application so if you've had the fun say
I don't know two weeks or a month before you've started the process for getting
an endorsement then you've still got a healthy lead in period. Now and the other
important point I want to make here is that remember that you can you can
bypass all of these four methods from one perspective if the endorsing body
actually confirms that the funds are available but in my view the the
endorsing body should not be applying a lesser evidential standard than the Home
Office itself recessing whether the funds are available so I don't think
that the endorsing body should be accepting evidence for example from a
from a foreign bank where they don't have the declaration from the legal
adviser to confirm the authenticity of the signature for example it would be
odd if those a discrepancy between evidential standards depending on
whether you are proving it to the Home Office or you were proving it to the
endorsing body so I think the best and right approach is for endorsing bodies
to apply exactly the same standard so although you can bypass this from
one perspective in in in another sense you can't in there
I'm you've got to provide the same evidential standard my point is that you
don't need to prove this for necessarily to the Home Office as an audience if the
if the endorsing body itself can just provide providing confirmation but the
evidence underlying that must be exactly the same and so let's go on to the last
way of showing that the funds are available so we finished that diagram so
number four if they've already been invested. Now I would not recommend
investing investing the funds before you and speak to a lawyer if you do want to
speak to me by the way I have a free consultation service in uk-based lawyer
and I would be delighted to help you with your application essentially if you
if you the reason why I think you shouldn't invest or take any major steps
for that matter before speaking to an advisor is that for example on this
point for for investment if you set up a new Co and you can invest into it and it
turns out you want to apply for the startup visa then you could actually
disqualify yourself if that company has has begun trading or on one reading not
because you've established your UK UK business it's best not to incorporate
before you've taken advice on this procedure it's only if you're definitely
going going for the innovative route that you can invest already because then
you're you're permitted under the innovative rules to to have a business
already established but and but not you can under the startup rule so you can
actually disqualify yourself so if you have already invested then you should
already have taken leave it advice so let's see what the what the rules
provide so if any of the funds already been invested in the applicants business
the applicant must provide either of the following evidence I'm showing the
amount that's been invested
so business accounts showing the name of the accountant and the day that they
were produced
and it's as simple as that so look you've got this this diagram I'm going
to provide this diagram and the different constituent elements of it and
some notes in a blog post which I'll be doing and linking and below so feel free
to check that out I'll also be doing a series of other videos about how to
satisfy the other requirements and feel free to subscribe and click the
notification bell to get those videos and feel free to contact me for a free
consultation if you need help with the process of applying for an innovative
visa or startup visa or if you're just considering your international options
for residency and citizenship by investment and also entrepreneur and
startup visas many thanks for your time and I'll see you in the next live stream.