I am a silent lurker on the forums and have received a lot of information which helped me get my ILR on Jan 14 2011 @ PEO Croydon. I thought that details of my case might help someone in the future hence my contribution...
Case details:
Entry into UK Jan 2006 WP + WP Extension Jan 2007 + HSMP Aug 2007 + Tier 1 2009.
I have had lot of absences due to business travel and paid annual leaves totalling 430+ days. Business days were in the last year and half. This caused me some concern but I had a detailed letter from employer with confirmation of continued employment along with details on the absences.
Experience:
I had an appointment at 10 am and reached PEO @9.30. After passing through the security check the case examiner asked me for proof of economic activity along with the SET O form and also employer letter. I had a combined letter for business absences and employment. I pointed out the same to him. The case was accepted and he gave me a token number and I was asked to go to Floor 1 for payment. The payment was made through a credit card without issues. I had to wait on the same floor to be called by a case worker. After 15 min. the case worker called me. I was asked following docs in a sequence. I told him I have an organised file and he can have anything he wants but he told me to handover the items personally. The items requested were:
1. SET O Form
2. KOL in UK test pass certificate
3. 3 months payslips (Oct - Dec for me). These were soft copies attested and signed by my company.
4. Letter of employment + Business absences letter
5. List of absences out of UK sheet
After this he asked me to sit in the common area till he needs me. He was going through the screen and the documents and I could see him the whole time from the common area. I remembered I had spent a lot of money and time on copies as well. I asked him if he wanted those and he was happy and asked me only for copies of front + back page of passport including all UK visa pages + copies of all originals he had asked for. After this I waited in the common area again. This time he took about 25 mins and called me personally to the desk. He asked me to have a seat and this made me nervous. He gave me the best news possible
that he had granted me ILR and handed over KOL and payslips back and asked me to collect passport from counter 22 in 1 hr. I could not contain myself but hung on and within 20 mins again my passport was ready. I read the details and confirmed all was ok. The best day in UK was already happening for me... Finally rid of all shackles I stepped out @ 11:30. The whole process took me 2 hours. The worst part of the day was the frigging tubes. At one point I thought I will never reach Croydon but what was meant to be was meant to be.... Now over to Citizenship forums... Please let me know if any of you have any queries and will try to respond as possible....