First of a very big thank you for the members of this forum, specially the highly active moderators and the senior members who have been out there to help all of us without claiming back anything. This forum has been a lot of help and guidance and hopefully will keep on doing that.
I had an appointment at PEO Croydon yesterday and here is a detail of my overall great experience there. I had booked an appointment for myself, my wife and 1 kid (we have 2 kids but younger one is UK born so we did not apply for his ILR as we wanted to file for his registration (MN1) directly after getting the ILR done). So no issues in taking a kid with you who does not have an appointment. We were a bit worried about the fact that kids are going to make it really hard for us to wait there as we would have been already tense and you know how kids can sometimes make you even more tense with their mischiefs and all that stuff. But the really good thing at the Croydon PEO was that they have a small kids play area in the Cafe and they have got a TV which had CBeebies on so we don't know what our kids did there while we tried to sit down and wait anxiously. This play area got my kids so involved that my wife even slept there for a few minutes
Appointment Time: 1:55
Reached PEO: 12:15pm (but not allowed to enter as it was a bit too early which was fine for us as we wanted to reach well before time)
Entered PEO: 13:15
Security Cleared: 13:20
Then we were taken to the 3rd floor and my family went to the cafe and I got in line to get the token.
Token issued: 13:30PM (just the payment receipt checked, the guy on the counter checked the psasports for other people but did not ask for mine)
Called for case registration: 13:50PM (took about 10 minutes for the operator to enter all data in the system, then she asked to submit all of the supporting documents, the way we had arranged the documents made her say 'oh that is going to make our life a lot easier' and I think it really did in the end, details below)
Biometric registration: approx 14:05PM Immediately after the case registration our number was announced for biometrics so we all went there. This took slightly longer than expected as the operator first vanished to help one of his colleagues, then came back, explained everything in too much detail (which I think was fine as some people may find it hard to understand the process and what's involved) but he was very helpful and soft spoken. He even joked with 2 of our kids. He took biometrics of my son first and that took the longest (understandably). since my son had turned 6 he had to ask his supervisor to authorize his biometrics entry. then me and my wife. This process took about 20-25 minutes and then we moved to the cafe to start the never ending kind of wait
Case registered for consideration (started processing): 3PM (so it was half an hour after the biometrics that our case was picked up)
Decision made and ready for collection: 3:45PM called for collection of documents and the lady congratulated me and asked me to check all info in the confirmation letter is fine and then we are good to go
So from the point our application was started to being considered it took only 45 minutes for the case worker to make a final decision which was pretty quick I think. But I did think if our application was going to be decided today it will be very quick because it was relatively straight forward as I have been working for the same company since I arrived in UK 5 years ago, my wife has been here with me all along and we had enough cohabitation proofs.
Now getting to the documents and how we organised our documents. I would suggest if you have a straightforward case, do not write a lengthy cover letter rather do not write a cover letter at all as that will just waste the case worker's time as he/she will have to go through that as well as all the documents you submit. so rather save his/her and your own time by reducing the time it takes for him/her to decide your case BUT do organise your documents. The letter is definitely recommended if your case is complicated and the caseworker might not understand all the supporting documents on their own without a reasonable explanation.
I organised our application into 4 folders and labelled them with what set of documents each folder has. Then each folder also had a set of photocopies of all original documents in it and these were labelled accordingly as well. Here is the list:
Folder 1 - Application form and KoLL documents
- - Application form
- Payment receipt
- Life in UK Test result for myself
- Life in UK Test result for my wife
- English language test result & certificate for my wife
- IELTS certificate for myself (it was the same certificate that I had used in my initial application more than 6 years ago so if you have already proven your English skills, no need to prove again but just attach the same proof again that you used in your initial application)
- - All passports for myself, wife and son
- BRP for myself, wife and son
- A simple spreadsheet telling a summary of all my absences from UK and which passport page they can find the relevant entry/exit stamps
- A letter from my employer confirming that the absences mentioned above are covered by the company's paid annual leave policy
- Travel itineraries/tickets for all of the above trips (luckily I had soft copies of all of them saved with me so just printed them out)
- - Letter from employer confirming my job status with them and since when, also listing how the salary is paid like our company pays salary on 15th of each month and it arrives in our banks on or before 15th, then the company pays dividends as part of salary and they are hand written on the payslip. This was all mentioned in the latter and also a reference to the sheet below:
- A spreadsheet from the employer detailing a complete breakdown of my last 12 months salaries (total, dividends, bonus, total before deductions, NI cont, Tax, other ad hoc deductions like loans, childcare vouchers, date transferred to bank)
- 12 months payslips, my pay slips are usually not stamped but I got them stamped from the finance manager
- 12 month bank statements for the salary account (this is a joint account held with my wife)
- Last 4 years P-60 documents (the only reason why I decided to add these at the last moment was that in section 11, it was mentioned that for all HSMP and other appropriate categories where you are applying for ILR after 5 years should add documents showing economic activity for last 5 years and I thought this is probably the most authentic proof of it)
- - Current tenancy agreement (although it was more than 2 years old but this was our current address so we attached it)
- Council tax letters for last 5 years (although 2 years should be enough but I just added that because we have had council tax on both our names since we have been here)
- Letter(s) from local council electoral office for me and another letter for my wife confirming that we have been registered voters at this address since so and so date.
- 2 Bank statements for another joint account (one for the month of March 2013 and one for January 2014)
- Bank statements from joint account (salary account) covering only the first year of the previous 2 years period (because this was the same account as my salary account, and the finance documents contained the last year, so we only included the first year statements of the account in this list)
- Car insurance letter for last 2 years as my wife has been an additional driver on my insurance for last 2 years
Again a big thank you to everyone who has been helping out.
Regards,
