Clarification needed regarding Permanent Residency in UK

[mubbu2k]

I am an immigrant from India holding Tier 1 General visa under Point Based System, valid till April 2012. My first entry to UK was on 11th January 2006 and till now working under different employers (in IT field) in UK. During my tenure, I had travelled back to my home country to change employer and came back in 80 days under a new visa (old visa was still valid when new employer obtained the new one). I would like to know about my eligibility to apply for Permanent Residence in UK. Details of my stay in UK and visa status are given below.


My visa details are as below:

1. Valid Work permit Visa from 29th Dec 2005 to 29th Dec 2008 (Came to UK on 11th January 2006)
2. Valid Work permit visa from 11th Oct 2007 to 10th July 2009 ( Changed the employer Out of UK,came back to UK on 21st October 2007)
3. Valid work permit visa from July 2008 to July 2013 ( Changed the employed within UK)
4. Valid Tier 1 (General) visa from 28th April 2009 to 28th April 2012 ( Changed to Tier 1 )

My absence in UK during 11th Jan 2006 till date is as follows:

Went out of country on 14th April 2006 and came back on 22 April 2006 – 9 days out of country -- (Paid leave)
Went out of country on 21st Oct 2006 and came back on 7th Nov 2006 2006 – 13days out of country -- (Paid Leave)
Went out of country on 30 July 2007 and came back on 20 Oct 2007 – 82 days out of country – during this time I have changed my employer and obtained a new entry clearance from India. However before leaving UK , i had a job offer from UK (Indian Based Company) had to go to india to join the job and came back to UK after obtaining a new workpermit.
Went out of country on 9th Aug 2008 and came back on 25th Aug 2008 – 12 days out of country -- (Paid Leave)
Went out of country on 20 Dec 2008 and came back on 25 Jan 2009 – 36 days out of country -- (Paid Leave )
I would be grateful if you could clarify below queries.

1. Will the second entry clearance visa stamping reset the period counted for Permanent residency?
2. What is the maximum period of absence in UK which will reset the period counted for PR?
3. My maximum absence duration from UK is 82 days (since I had to travel back to change my employer). Will this absence reset the period counted for PR?
4. Considering above points, could you please advice when I will be eligible to apply for PR?

I request for your kind consideration.



Many thanks,



Cheers,

Mubashir

[mubbu2k]

Hi Experts,

Could any one suggest me on above situation.

I would highly appreciate your response.

Many thanks in advance.

Cheers,
Mubashir

[mubbu2k]

Hi Immigration experts, moderators,

i would highly appreciate if you can help me in clarifying my queries.

Not sure if my situation is very complicated ?

Many thanks,

Cheers,
Mubashir

[pkumar]

Worry is that you changed employer outside UK ... not sure it that resets your time in uk?
check with UKBI and see if you can send them email ..... or search for the rules .... Wait for experts views

[mubbu2k]

I got the following reply from Home Office. They are not at all clear !!
===============================

Dear Sir/Madam,

Thank you for your enquiry.

Any absences other than paid annual leave or necessary business trips should not exceed 3 months at a time or 6 months in total over the 5 year period.

Where a person has spent less than half his time in the United Kingdom he should be refused indefinite leave to remain and not granted a further extension of stay.

Where an application for settlement is to be refused only because of lack of continuity of residence but is likely to succeed if re-submitted within a year a suitable extension should be granted on the same conditions as before with a letter indicating that the case for settlement will be reviewed upon application at the end of the further period.

Yours faithfully,

Rez Jason

Immigration Group

UK Border Agency

If you intend to reply to this e-mail please ensure that you re-send all the information from your original enquiry.

[anooppunshi]

Dear Mubashir

I have spoken to a friend of mine who was in a situation to some extent similar to yours. He changed his employer within UK which meant he had to get a new entry clearance (visa) on his passport. After resigning from his previous employer he went to India (for 7-10 days) where he received the new work permit issued by home office through his employer. He came back to UK on the exisiting visa (based on his old work permit). Then he sent his passport within UK along with his new work permit to Home office and they stamped the new visa on his passport.

The point I am trying to make here is that he spent 7 days in India on his existing work permit visa and you spent 82 days. As you have seen in the reply from home office, that the allowable maximum period for any single trip (other than paid annual leave or business trip) is 90 days, I believe you are still within the rules to apply for your ILR.

However I have also heard about something that when you are on a work permit and you want to change your employement or your visa status after resigning from that job, you normally have 28 from the date of leaving the job till either leaving the country or applying for a valid visa under another category. I am not sure about that requirement.

Now can I mention to you that by posting that reply you received from Home office on this website, you have done a great help to me. Actually I was worried about my ILR application with regards to absences from UK. I come to UK in October 2005 on a work permit. Then I changed my status to Tier 1 General. The total number of days I have been out of UK is 254 days so far. Out of which 12 is business trip, 52 days is a medical treatment trip and the rest (190 days) are paid annual leaves. Initially I was worried that I have gone beyond the limit of 180 days which is mentioned in the case worker guidance for ILR applications. But the reply you have posted from Home office clearly says that paid annual leaves and business trips are in addition to the 90 days (single trip) and 180 days (total in five years) rules.

Can I ask you for a big favour? Could you please tell me in what form did you receive this reply from home office. If it was a letter, could you kindly provide me a copy of such letter (either by fax, email or post) or if you received it in email, can you please forward it to my email address anooppunshi@yahoo.com I tried a lot to get such kind of reply from home office by sending them emails, but they haven't replied. I would highly appreciate this favour.

Many thanks

Anoop

[anooppunshi]

Dear Mubashir

I have spoken to a friend of mine who was in a situation to some extent similar to yours. He changed his employer within UK which meant he had to get a new entry clearance (visa) on his passport. After resigning from his previous employer he went to India (for 7-10 days) where he received the new work permit issued by home office through his employer. He came back to UK on the exisiting visa (based on his old work permit). Then he sent his passport within UK along with his new work permit to Home office and they stamped the new visa on his passport.

The point I am trying to make here is that he spent 7 days in India on his existing work permit visa and you spent 82 days. As you have seen in the reply from home office, that the allowable maximum period for any single trip (other than paid annual leave or business trip) is 90 days, I believe you are still within the rules to apply for your ILR.

However I have also heard about something that when you are on a work permit and you want to change your employement or your visa status after resigning from that job, you normally have 28 from the date of leaving the job till either leaving the country or applying for a valid visa under another category. I am not sure about that requirement.

Now can I mention to you that by posting that reply you received from Home office on this website, you have done a great help to me. Actually I was worried about my ILR application with regards to absences from UK. I come to UK in October 2005 on a work permit. Then I changed my status to Tier 1 General. The total number of days I have been out of UK is 254 days so far. Out of which 12 is business trip, 52 days is a medical treatment trip and the rest (190 days) are paid annual leaves. Initially I was worried that I have gone beyond the limit of 180 days which is mentioned in the case worker guidance for ILR applications. But the reply you have posted from Home office clearly says that paid annual leaves and business trips are in addition to the 90 days (single trip) and 180 days (total in five years) rules.

Can I ask you for a big favour? Could you please tell me in what form did you receive this reply from home office. If it was a letter, could you kindly provide me a copy of such letter (either by fax, email or post) or if you received it in email, can you please forward it to my email address anooppunshi@yahoo.com I tried a lot to get such kind of reply from home office by sending them emails, but they haven't replied. I would highly appreciate this favour.

Many thanks

Anoop

I got the following reply from Home Office. They are not at all clear !!
===============================

Dear Sir/Madam,

Thank you for your enquiry.

Any absences other than paid annual leave or necessary business trips should not exceed 3 months at a time or 6 months in total over the 5 year period.

Where a person has spent less than half his time in the United Kingdom he should be refused indefinite leave to remain and not granted a further extension of stay.

Where an application for settlement is to be refused only because of lack of continuity of residence but is likely to succeed if re-submitted within a year a suitable extension should be granted on the same conditions as before with a letter indicating that the case for settlement will be reviewed upon application at the end of the further period.

Yours faithfully,

Rez Jason

Immigration Group

UK Border Agency

If you intend to reply to this e-mail please ensure that you re-send all the information from your original enquiry.

[fahadz1]

I got the following reply from Home Office. They are not at all clear !!
===============================

Dear Sir/Madam,

Thank you for your enquiry.

Any absences other than paid annual leave or necessary business trips should not exceed 3 months at a time or 6 months in total over the 5 year period.

Where a person has spent less than half his time in the United Kingdom he should be refused indefinite leave to remain and not granted a further extension of stay.

Where an application for settlement is to be refused only because of lack of continuity of residence but is likely to succeed if re-submitted within a year a suitable extension should be granted on the same conditions as before with a letter indicating that the case for settlement will be reviewed upon application at the end of the further period.

Yours faithfully,

Rez Jason

Immigration Group

UK Border Agency

If you intend to reply to this e-mail please ensure that you re-send all the information from your original enquiry.

what they mean by 'Where a person has spent less than half his time in the United Kingdom ' ?

[gd_chandrasekar]

Hi Mubashir

My case is just the same as yours. I came thru

I came to UK in Aug 2005 thru Work Permit, then I went back to India in Aug 2006, again came back to UK in sept 2007, and managed to get HSMP in 2008 from UK itself and recently extended to Tier 1 General.

Below are my visa stampings validity date, the same date are there in respective Work Permits.

Valid from Valid Till Type Sponsor
19/08/2005 31/12/2007 Work Permit
24/08/2006 21/12/2008 Work Permit
29/01/2008 29/01/2010 HSMP
29/01/2010 29/01/2013 Tier 1

The only diff between us is that I was out for 46 days and your were out 82 days.

Pls let me know if you get any inputs on this. Thanks

Chandra

[mubbu2k]

Hi All Sorry for late reply as i was out of country and not able to reply here.

I have contacted on the following e-mail address and go the response from my previous post.
IND Public Enquiries <UKBApublicenquiries@ukba.gsi.gov.uk>

Today i had a chat with my company immigration solicitor and she suggested me that having multiple entry clearance on the passport will not reset the duration count towards the ILR if am back in UK in less than 90 days. There is not hard rule which says changing employer outside UK will reset the ILR duration.


i have also asked her to suggest me on business trip duration on how long i can stay out of UK on business trip. she suggested me not to stay more than 3 months , if possible come back at least once in 3 months duration to maintain the continuous stay in the UK however if i don't do that then my ILR may be in jepity situation.

I would also like to have some thoughts form any senior members of Forum to review once more time and suggest here so that other members can read the same in feature.

Many thanks,

Cheers,
Mubashir

[mubbu2k]

Hi All,
Just spotted this on internet where UKBA replied to my query,
i am going to apply for ILR end of this month. will keep every one posted on the progress.

Dear UK Border Agency,

I would like to know if the person who is on a work permit and
working in the U.K , changed the employer and had to go back to
home country and got the new work permit from the new employer and
came back to U.K within 90.

is change of employment out side UK and got new entry clearance
will reset the continuous stay duration counted towards ILR ? even
if the person had not stayed outside the UK for more than 90 days ?

is the person's stay deemed to be continuous stay in UK if he
changed the employer out side the UK and came back to UK within 90
days period ?

many thanks in advance.

Yours faithfully,

Mubashir

Link to this | Send follow up
Employment Policy

12 February 2010
Dear Mubashir

Thank you for your email to the Freedom of Information Team about
changes of employment for work permit-holders. It has been passed to me
for response.

To qualify for indefinite leave to remain as a work permit holder, you
must have spent a continuous period of 5 years lawfully in the UK among
other things. Caseworkers may consider whether the use of discretion is
appropriate for absences of less than three months providing the total
period of absence from the UK does not exceed six months. This may also
apply if you make a new application for entry clearance while overseas
if you wish to change your employer provided your existing leave has not
lapsed at the time you make the application.

Yours faithfully

Darren Carter
UK Border Agency

[mubbu2k]

Hi All,

i wanted to keep this thread up to date on my application process.

pleased to inform all the forum members that my ILR Application was successful and i have no further immigration restriction on me.

Many thanks ,

Cheers,
Mubashir

[ice.blade]

Hi All,

i wanted to keep this thread up to date on my application process.

pleased to inform all the forum members that my ILR Application was successful and i have no further immigration restriction on me.

Many thanks ,

Cheers,
Mubashir

Congratulations....

I have similar issue...

In 2007, I went to india for personal emergency and same time my wp was expiring just within few days. and filled my new wp from india(same employer) and came back within 40 days. fortunately good will of my employer paid me and made it paid leave.

do u think this would reset the counter of long stay in the UK?