ILR Success (Croydon) - 544 days out of UK

[raghusn]

Today we got our ILR, my wife and son with one application and my two daughters with separate over 18 applications.

Interestingly, we had been to Solihull PEO on 31st to apply and were told to make a postal application as the office had no resources to consider complicated cases like mine. We thought it over and decided to try at Croydon as it is a much larger outfit. To our surprise we could book appointments on 3rd September for the 6th. We were expecting slots will be available only after 3-4 weeks.

We were lucky that our papers were seen by a very competent case worker. I had filed all the documents pertaining to the days out of UK in a file and handed it over to her. No unnecessary questions were asked. We were asked to wait for 90 minutes and exactly after that time informed that we are getting the ILR.

Now to the details of our case – Came to UK in September 2006 on a five year work permit, Changed to HSMP in September 2007, extended the visa as Tier 1 (G) in September 2009, valid till Sept 2012. I started my limited company in October 2007. I am an engineer and work in the Oil & Gas plant design. I had to make 18 visits to the UAE and one to Malaysia for the contracts we had signed on with a client in middle-east. Total number of days on business was about 460. I also had paid holidays of about 90 days spent in visits to India and the Europe.


The papers we submitted in the days out of UK file:
- A personal letter from me stating my company had grown in three years of operation, in terms of revenue. I made a mention that the company had contributed £48,000 as corporation tax to the exchequer. Pointed out that all business visits were to a third country and not to the domiciled.
- A letter in my company’s letter head listing the absence and confirming that I continued to be on the payroll and contributed NIC without any break in service.
- A letter from the company’s accounting firm confirming the above
- Importantly, a letter from my client confirming that our company had executed the contracts mentioned by me and that of my presence in their premises with dates.
- Invoices raised by our company for my services at the client’s overseas office
- Bank’s credit note for the payment received for these invoices
I had also enclosed other routine stuff – pay slips, dividend vouchers, bank statements, P60s etc.
I hope I have covered all the salient points. Though it is not directly connected, I will mention a side-issue. Our second daughter is starting her Law degree course this year. We were very anxious that we have our ILR on 1st September, the cut-off date for deciding her fee status. ILR on or before 1st Sept, would have made her status ‘home student’ and resulted in a saving of about £ 45,000 over the next three years. Now we plan to write to UKBA to confirm that we were eligible for ILR on31st August, but were unable to obtain it due to limitations at Solihull. I know it is a long shot, but we will give it a try! I will be thankful if any of the boarders could share with us similar experiences on this front.
For ILR seekers with long business absences, I hope my case gives hope and I will respond to any queries you may have.

[mk357]

Congratulations. I must say it was a complicated case. Just one question which form did you use for your daughters over 18 years? Is it SET(F) and what fee did you pay for them?

[raghusn]

Thanks. We used Set O forms. I believe Set (M) is to be used if the dependent is applying at a later date than the main applicant. The fee was £1350.

[farah]

Congratulations.

It is strange that Solihull PEO termed it a complicated case and lack of resources. Every PEO has senior case worker -SEO/Grade 7- to approve higher absences.
There is post where they approved a case with 5 months absence at a time on medical grounds.
http://www.immigrationboards.com/viewto ... ht=#522587

If you can post further details of your case handlying at Solihull it may be usefull for members of this board

[mk357]

Thanks. We used Set O forms. I believe Set (M) is to be used if the dependent is applying at a later date than the main applicant. The fee was £1350.

Thanks for the reply. Just two more questions. How did you book the appointment for all the family? Did you phone them or though their website? and did you all go to the PEO or just you. The fee you mentioned £1,350 was for one child (over 18years) or both?
Thanks

[raghusn]

mk357, we had booked through the website. I think the online booking process has changed recently. As we progress through the booking, it asks for dependents details and also informs that all the dependents should attend the interview. May be you can register and go through the process till the last step just to get familiar with the process. There is an option to pay on line but I preferred to do it at the PEO.
The fee was £1350 for each application, therefore I paid £2700 in all for the two dependent applications, in addition to the £ 2700 for my main application ( myself, and two dependents - wife and 16 year old son)

Hope this helps.

[mk357]

mk357, we had booked through the website. I think the online booking process has changed recently. As we progress through the booking, it asks for dependents details and also informs that all the dependents should attend the interview. May be you can register and go through the process till the last step just to get familiar with the process. There is an option to pay on line but I preferred to do it at the PEO.
The fee was £1350 for each application, therefore I paid £2700 in all for the two dependent applications, in addition to the £ 2700 for my main application ( myself, and two dependents - wife and 16 year old son)

Hope this helps.

Thank you Raghusn for the prompt reply. Yes I'll see how it works my ILR is still 3 months away. I know they do ask for all the applicants to attend the PEO but on this forum everyone is saying that we don't need to take all the family just the main applicant, thats why I asked the question. So in essence you all went and were you all interviewed by the CW or just you?

[raghusn]

Yes, we all went. My wife and son were not even seen by the case worker. My daughters making their separate applications just handed in their applications and the LITUK certificates and their part was over. The caseworker went through the application form page by page and asked few cursory questions. I was sitting in front of her for about 10 minutes. Then she asked me to either wait in the hall or to go out and come back in about 90 minutes. We left her in peace and waited in the hall a few chairs away. Exactly after 90 minutes she called us and gave the good news and returned the documents.

BTW, how do you get my message in a box in your reply? I am not very familiar with how this works and will be grateful to know.

[mk357]

Yes, we all went. My wife and son were not even seen by the case worker. My daughters making their separate applications just handed in their applications and the LITUK certificates and their part was over. The caseworker went through the application form page by page and asked few cursory questions. I was sitting in front of her for about 10 minutes. Then she asked me to either wait in the hall or to go out and come back in about 90 minutes. We left her in peace and waited in the hall a few chairs away. Exactly after 90 minutes she called us and gave the good news and returned the documents.

BTW, how do you get my message in a box in your reply? I am not very familiar with how this works and will be grateful to know.

Hi Raghusn. Thanks again, this clarifies the situation now. You get the message in the box when you reply by pressing the "quote" button on the right side of the message rather than pressing "reply".

[prince12]

Congrats on your success, please could you tell me if any of your abscences were more than 90days at a time?

[raghusn]

No. The maximum absence was 84 days.

[geriatrix]

Further to my earlier post

"I hope I have covered all the salient points. Though it is not directly connected, I will mention a side-issue. Our second daughter is starting her Law degree course this year. We were very anxious that we have our ILR on 1st September, the cut-off date for deciding her fee status. ILR on or before 1st Sept, would have made her status ‘home student’ and resulted in a saving of about £ 45,000 over the next three years. Now we plan to write to UKBA to confirm that we were eligible for ILR on31st August, but were unable to obtain it due to limitations at Solihull. I know it is a long shot, but we will give it a try! I will be thankful if any of the boarders could share with us similar experiences on this front."

We wrote to the UKBA requesting backdating of our ILR to the date we appeared at Solihull. We wrote that in the light of Jami's correspondence with UKBA (http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/i ... ing-192235) and also as we know that many cases of long absences were in fact decided at Solihull, the refusal to process our application was wrong.

On November 9th, two months after we wrote, UKBA have written a letter agreeing to backdate the ILR date and asking us to send our passports to their office.

We are, needless to say, overjoyed as it is a matter of £76,000 of university fees.
Our heartfelt thanks to our MP who took up our case strongly with UKBA. I think it had a very large influence on their decision.

Many thanks to our friends in the forum from where I got lots of information on the basis of which we had contested UKBAs action.

[geriatrix]

Congratulations. Very good news for those afraid of raising issues with UKBA.
Another aspect of this post is use of MP. Immigrants are hesitant of joining any political party of UK. Whereas when they register for vote shortly after arrival in UK (though not for voting but for other reasons) they should consider becoming member of any party. At least one member of household should be member if not the main applicant. MPs are very easily accessible to all the residents of their constituency and are usually helpful as only very few people contact them for any issue.

[jaskiratbaweja]

Hi there,

How did you fill in the section where it asks for :

'Please confirm whether you have been outside of UK for any single absence of over 3 months or one or more absences which amount to more than 6 months in total in 5 year period.

Did you say yes? And then in explain box did you put split of business related absences and personal ones?

Thanks in advance!