Post
by pentatonic » Fri Aug 28, 2015 6:12 pm
Hi all,
I've been lurking around in these forums and asked a couple of questions in the past. Today I thought I should share something back.
I've literally just gotten out of PSC Croydon with a successful FLR(M) application. However there was one little (but rather alarming) hiccup along the way.
To cut the story short, about half an hour after my biometrics were taken and while I was waiting in the coffee shop area, my cellphone rang and it was an angry sounding caseworker on the other side. His issue: I stated that I had to meet the the income threshold of £18,600, however I sent in a letter from my wife's university showing a tax-free stipend of only £18,3xx yet I said that I met the requirement anyway. He shouted at me for being unclear on the form, despite me writing absolutely everywhere that the number is required that this exceeds the amount required in table 6.4.2 of the IDI appendix FM 1.7.
He wasn't going to have any of it. I said to be fair the form itself is unclear as there is no provision anywhere on the form for you to fill in the tax-free stipend case. He said, and I quote, 'hundreds of thousands of people fill in this form every year and you're telling me it's unclear?' At this point I just said 'look, I followed exactly what the immigration rule appendix fm-se asked me to do in paragraph 10(g), to the letter. What more do you want me to do?'
He said he would go and talk to his manager. Fifteen minutes later I was granted the LTR.
So I guess this is just a heads up for those of you who are looking to apply using student maintenance stipend under Category C. Not only is this apparently is unusual, it's unusual enough for some IO to not even know about it.
To be fair I went in fully expecting this to happen, but somehow it still hits me by surprise when it actually did.