FLR (M) Premium appt success - my experience

[ajwilo]

Hi,

My wife had her premium appointment at the visa centre in Croydon yesterday and got approved. I wanted to post our experience her because these forums (and the moderators) were of great help when we came looking for it. So if anyone is in the same situation as us, this post may offer some guidance and/or reassurance...

My wife is Australian, I am British. She came to the UK on a Tier 5 Youth Mobility visa last May. We have been living together here since then and got married in November. She applied for her spouse visa 5-year partner route. This is her first application for Further Leave to Remain, which will last for 30 months (2 and a half years). All being well, she will then apply for her 2nd period of FLR (another 30 months), after which she can apply for Indefinite Leave to Remain.

As most will know, the main things you have to prove are that you meet the financial requirement, are in a real relationship and have access to appropriate accommodation. Both of us are self-employed, so there's some extra paperwork you have to compile. They look at what you earned in the last tax year. My wife earned enough to meet the requirement herself, so we didn't bother filling out any details about my self-employment at all. NB: the applicant can only use their earnings if they are in the UK already on a visa that, when issued, lasted for longer than 6 months and allowed you to work. If the applicant is outside of the UK, their earnings won't be considered towards the financial requirement.

These are the documents we submitted, in order:

- Application checklist (3 pages that you print from the account you set up when making premium appointment)
- printout of IHS payment confirmation (Immigration Health Surcharge)
- FLR (M) form
- 2 passport photos of applicant with name on back
- 1 passport photo of sponsor with name on back

FINANCIAL REQUIREMENT DOCS:
- 2016/17 Tax Return (print-out from online self-assessment account)
- 2016/17 Tax Calculation, also known as SA302 (print-out from online self-assessment account)
- Personal bank statements covering 2016/17 tax year with income from self-employment highlighted
- Accountants Certificate of Confirmation (also known as an Accountant's Report)
- Unaudited Accounts for 2016/17 tax year (also known as Profit & Loss account)
- Letter from HMRC showing registration for self-assessment
- 2 x letter from organisations currently engaging applicants self-employed services
- Recent personal bank statement (MUST be no more than 3 months old at time of interview) with income from self-employment highlighted

ACCOMMODATION/CORRESPONDENCE DOCS:
- Letter from landlord
- Tenancy agreement
- Property Inspection Report
- Around 20 items of correspondence. Some of these were joint bank account statements in both our names, the rest were letters or statements addressed to us individually. They included council tax; tv licence; GP registration letter; letter from Home Office giving us permission to marry

RELATIONSHIP DOCS:
- Marriage certificate along with 15 x wedding photos
- Some print-outs of flight tickets and accommodation confirmations for trips we have taken together, along with photos from said holidays.

In truth, I think only the marriage certificate was looked at with regards the relationship docs. Also, we probably could've gotten away with providing a landlord letter OR tenancy agreement - we may not have needed to do both. Property inspection report was good because we rent and have a flatmate. The report confirms the flat is big enough and safe to live in.

We didn't hire an immigration lawyer because it's so much money when all is put together. Here was our breakdown of costs:
£1583 (visa AND premium appointment)
£500 IHS payment
£120 property inspection report
£240 Accountants fee (we don't usually use an accountant so we paid one specifically for this. If you have an accountant already, I'm sure they'd do the confirmation letter for you for no extra cost)

What with all the photocopying etc, that's close to £2500. We will have to do it again in 30 months so paying a lawyer £1200 to help us was just too much. And no matter how unreasonable some of these costs are (I mean, my wife has been here working for a year and half and will be paying a hefty National Insurance bill when she makes her tax payment in January, so how is it fair that she has to pay an IHS as well??), they are the costs and they're only going to go up.

If anyone has any questions about this I'll try and answer as best I can.

Thanks

[2017Freedom]

Congratulations and thanks for the info.
My wife is due to apply on February -would it be ok to pay IHS from now or shall I wait until the date gets a bit closer ?
Also did you apply 28 days in advance ( before the visa expired) we are also planning to switch visa from DLR to FLR m so hope fully will get the visa on the day

Many thanks

[2017Freedom]

Sorry another question..do you need to leave the payment page on the blank if you pay online

[ajwilo]

Congratulations and thanks for the info.
My wife is due to apply on February -would it be ok to pay IHS from now or shall I wait until the date gets a bit closer ?
Also did you apply 28 days in advance ( before the visa expired) we are also planning to switch visa from DLR to FLR m so hope fully will get the visa on the day

Many thanks

I believe you can pay you IHS whenever really. You can't make a premium booking until after you've paid the IHS, and the furthest ahead you can book a premium appointment is 45 days. So, our appointment was on 18th Dec and we booked it on 6th November. Appointments become available at midnight and the 9am ones (these are the earliest ones WITHOUT paying extra) disappear quickly. So, if there's a day you want then make sure you get online at midnight exactly 45 days beforehand to book it!
We made sure our appointment was no more than 28 days before her current visa expired. Her Tier 5 was due to expire 5th Jan 2018.

[ajwilo]

Sorry another question..do you need to leave the payment page on the blank if you pay online

Yes, leave the payment page blank. At the end of the form, there's a checklist to tick. One of the boxes says something like "I have completed payment page and enclosed payment". We didn't tick that box, but under it wrote "paid online"

[2017Freedom]

You're so helpful with your advice -many thanks indeed !

[2017Freedom]

Sorry...one more question please as nobody In the forum seem to know :

We have been asked to also provide birth certificates for me and my wife on the online application - we can't get them as we need to go back to our country to get them - we have provided passports though .. any idea ? Were you asked th same ?

Many thanks for all your help

[yeh1224]

Hi ajwilo

thanks for sharing your experience!

I'm going to apply LTR as the same way you did. But I have some questions regarding to the financial requirements.

You mentioned your 16/17 Tax Return and SA302 were both downloaded and printed out from online account. I've downloaded my Tax Return pdf, but there're watermark on each page... Do you think the home office will accept it?

Regarding to SA302, I didn't find anywhere to download it, how did you get it?

Thank you very much!

[ajwilo]

Sorry...one more question please as nobody In the forum seem to know :

We have been asked to also provide birth certificates for me and my wife on the online application - we can't get them as we need to go back to our country to get them - we have provided passports though .. any idea ? Were you asked th same ?

Many thanks for all your help

First of all - sorry for slow reply!

We weren't asked to provide birth certificates. I guess every case is different, but my wife is from Australia which is an English majority country. This means she didn't have to do an English language test, and perhaps it's one of the reasons she didn't have to provide a birth certificate. I'm afraid I just don't know.

All you can do is submit what you can. If you can't submit something that they request, you need to provide a written note explaining why you can't submit it. If you can get someone from your country of origin to send the birth certificates to you, or photocopy them, then do that. Otherwise just explain and hope they understand!

[ajwilo]

Hi ajwilo

thanks for sharing your experience!

I'm going to apply LTR as the same way you did. But I have some questions regarding to the financial requirements.

You mentioned your 16/17 Tax Return and SA302 were both downloaded and printed out from online account. I've downloaded my Tax Return pdf, but there're watermark on each page... Do you think the home office will accept it?

Regarding to SA302, I didn't find anywhere to download it, how did you get it?

Thank you very much!

Yes, you can submit a copy of your tax return that's downloaded from you HMRC tax account page. It doesn't even have to be the full colour one - I submitted a black and white basic copy. The watermark doesn't matter.

The SA302 is also referred to as your 'Tax Calculation'. On your tax account page there'll be an option somewhere to 'view your calculation' then 'view full calculation' then 'print calculation'. Or at least it's something like that! You can also just google "print SA302" and someone will have written clear instructions about it.

Good luck!