There is no way out under your circumstances. The best way is that you get divorced from your ex, get married to your girlfriend and she applies for spouse visa from within country. All this must take place before her current visa runs out.

Other way could be, that she goes back to her home country before her visa expires. When you get divorced from your ex, she either arrives in UK on fiance visa, marries you here and then gets a full spouse visa. After your divorce, your can visit chile, get married to her there and then she applies for spouse visa from chile.

In any of the above situations, you need to be earning a minimum of £18600 per year gross.

....the earning part isn't a problem, we just wanted to wait for the marriage a wee bit longer.

Thanks for the info.

Hope everyone is doing OK?

Right..here goes:
I've been with my girlfriend for 2 years now (she is from Chile, just finished her PhD at Nottingham Uni), and while she has been studying I have told her to stay at the Uni halls to concentrate on her studies. We are now living together, about a year, but her student visa runs out at the start of next year. From what I understand, we have to prove that we have been living together for 2 years to apply for a partnership visa. How do we do that if her visa runs out in 5 months? If she gets major corrections, she can apply for extension...but if she doesn't, then what? The intention for marriage is there but I'm 3 years separated and the divorce is slowly being sorted out. Is there a 'probation period' visa that would allow her to live with me while 1)divorce to get sorted 2)prove that our relationship is solid 3)she wants to earn a honest living 4)live together.
Hope this is easy to understand and I'm baffled by writing this

Take care all,
Cheers
Marky