Entry Clearance for six months and 14 days only - Permanent Lecturer position in the UK

[gtbarradas]

Hi everyone,

I was sponsored for 3 years to work in the UK as a lecturer at a University. Before I moved from Portugal (EU country),I applied for my Skilled worker visa at the beginning of September 2023 and got clearance by the end of that month.

The decision email from the Home Office said, "Your application for Entry Clearance as a Skilled Worker has been successful. You have been granted permission to enter and stay in the UK as a Skilled Worker from 1 Oct 2023 until 14 Apr 2024.

I asked my sponsor what was going on and why my clearance was only for 6 months and 14 days. Nobody answered me to this question at that point. They just invited to come to the UK as quickly as possible to start my Lecturer position.

Now, approximately two months before the 14th April, the University is asking me to extend my visa.
Is this normal to happen? Why did the home office only issue entry clearance for 6 months and a few days? And why would the University hire me for a permanent position even after knowing my visa was only valid for 6 months? Does someone understand what is going on?

Considering all of this, does this mean I have to apply for a new visa (extension) and pay again for a 3-year health surcharge plus the application fee??

Someone, please help me, as the University is not answering my questions.

[Frontier Mole]

Did you get a refund of your IHS?
If you didn’t then there is something wrong. The Home Office does not restrict the visa period on a skilled worker visa application. So the blame is squarely on the Sponsor- they are the ones that set the time period to 6 months. The other 14 days is added to the end of the work date as standard.
My assumption is the University placed you on a 6 months probation period and only issued you a COS for six months.

[gtbarradas]

Hi,

I appreciate your support. No, I did not get any IHS refund.
I had a meeting with the sponsor, and we both checked that CoS was issued for 3 years, and my visa application states 3 years. The sponsor (University) will revise my application details to see if I submitted everything correctly (which I think I did). They told me that if everything were correct, they would contact the Home Office. Do you think this could be a Home Office mistake or there are also other possibilities?

Thanks in advance. Does anyone suggest something else going on?

[Frontier Mole]

Looks like a Home Office issue based on the information. Get the Sponsor to talk to their contact. I am assuming the University holds a premium service account.

[lolo2]

I think this is a case of a mistake from the Home Office. Others here have reported getting a much less validity period on their visas as a consequence of this mistake.

You might have needed to report this to UKVI to be corrected as soon as you received your visa and noticed the issue, but I guess there is still a way to resolve this with engagement from your sponsor. Also use the search tool here to see how others proceeded.

[gtbarradas]

Hi,

The University refuses to talk to their contact. They insisted that I would have to call the Home Office, which I did several. They suggested an email to admin review, which I already sent, and another email to complaints. They told me that only the admin review could fix it. However, the answer might come too late - the visa expires on the 14th of April. Under these conditions would you wait for the visa to expire, leave the country and reapply, or apply from the UK one month before it expires?

I will have to pay the visa application plus Health Care Surcharge again, though. And probably I need a new CoS again, right? I have not found any other posts about this validity issue.

Thanks

[lolo2]

It can take several months to receive a respond from an administrative review.

The Home Office call centre will not fix this issue, and likely you will receive a poor advice from them.

You don't need to wait for the visa to expire to apply for an extension, also no need to leave the UK. You can apply at any time before your visa expires, need a new CoS, pay the application and IHS fees again. The administrative review will be cancelled when you make a new application.

You might be eligible for a partial refund on the IHS fee pro rata of the remaining leave. You can keep working for the current employer while the visa application is pending.

The University should have told you to fix this issue before you arrived in the UK, but I know first-hand that HEI-HRs are not always that diligent.