My ILR application was approved today at Croydon PEO. Such a big relief and I'm so happy. I have been worried, paranoid, stressed out about this for years esp with my long absences in 2012. I have been on this forum posting questions, reading advices to keep my sanity (but sometimes I got freaked out even more).
I'm sharing my experience with you here, hoping this maybe useful to some.
My case:
- In the UK since 2007 as a student, Tier 2 G in July 2010, extended in 2013 valid until 2016.
- Applied for ILR 24 days before completing my 5 year qualifying period.
- 290 days outside of the UK in 5 years, 2 long business trips 70+ and 80+ days with 1 week gap in between in 2012. No letter from employer specially for these 2 trips.
- Life in the UK pass notification has name in wrong order.
PEO experience:
- Arrived at 8am for a 8.40am appointment.
- 8.10am went in to have security check and sat at the café to wait a little.
- 8.30 registered and got the number, went back to the waiting area to wait.
- 8.40 ish (lost track of time at this stage) went to have my details entered in the system.
- 8.50 ish went to have my biometric done.
- 9.10 ish went back to waiting area.
- 9.50am my documents were ready for collection
The whole thing was very smooth and quick, I was prepared to wait there for 2-3 hours.
My documents:
- application form
- 3 months payslips (latest)
- 3 months bank statement (latest) by Natwest, printed at branch, no stamp or sign
- 5 P60s
- Letter from employer to confirm: employment, SOC code, salary, confirm that salary is above the required rate, one sentence in the same letter saying that all my personal and business travels were in line with the employment.
- Life in the UK pass notification (with the wrong name order, no cover letter to mention this).
- Cover letter listing out all the documents.
- List of all absences from the UK with passport page of the stamps and a clear table showing the whole days out each year of all the 5 years.
- Copies of all the above and my previous BRPs and passport pages one by one (all the passport pages were needed, it was prepared for me by the solicitor company that my employer appointed to assist me).
Caveat that I was assisted by solicitor and agent throughout the whole process. But I stayed very close to it so know exactly what was going on.
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