UK Spouse VISA renewal

[RkSC]

All,

My current spouse visa will expire on April 28, 2018. My questions:

1) Health Surcharge: As my original application was Feb 2015 which was refused and on appeal was accepted in July 2015, I did not have to pay any NHS charges as my original application was before the charge was introduced. Does this also apply for renewal or is it a blanket rule- everybody has to pay these charges?

2) In the .gov.uk website it states that you can only apply 28 days prior to expiry of current visa. I am planning to do a premium service and was wondering if Application date is considered as the date of the appointment/actual date when I filled in the online form. My suspicion is that I might not be able to get premium service booking. Currently I have not signed the online declaration but filled the form and saved it.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

RkSC

[seagul]

1. You now have to pay immigration health surcharge for next 2.5 years of extension as part of application.

2. Date of application is usually when you successfully submits the application.

[vinny]

Be careful of applying for FLR(M) too early, as this may shorten the period available to apply for SET(M). Remind the caseworker that s/he has discretion to add up to 28 extra days.