Post
by etmeyer » Wed Aug 01, 2012 10:44 am
Success at Solihull on 31 July 2012! Thanks to this board, everything went smoothly.
One thing I hadn't noticed on here before with regard to proof of cohabitation with my dependent spouse: they needed forms for each of the previous three calendar years with that year on the form (not just covering the time period). In other words, they needed documents dated 2010, 2011, and 2012. We had council tax bills covering that period, but because we moved house and our council had problems getting everything sorted, we had 2 bills dated 2012, but none dated 2011 (even though it covered the 2011 period). We had a bit of a worried moment, but I dug through my backup documents and was able to produce a Post Office redirection notice with both our names dated 2011, and the case worker happily accepted that. Basically, she needed to tick something for each calendar year on her form. Something to keep in mind!
Everything went very smoothly in Solihull. There was a bit of a delay with the biometric processing but the office manager explained to the whole waiting room that they had run out of printer ink, and she had to wait for the shops to open to buy a replacement at 10:00. She was very nice and apologetic, and they got everything back on track once they got more ink.
I would say, based on the order everything was checked, the most important things they wanted to know were:
1. When we arrived, they made sure we had the correct version of SET(O) since they have changed recently.
2. The first thing the case worker wanted to know after she saw all the stamps in my passport was how many days I had been out of the country. She appreciated my spreadsheet showing a total of 174 days, and said that was absolutely fine. (We saw someone with 225 days turned away at the check-in counter).
3. The only documents she wanted were:
A) SET(O)
B) 2 passports
C) 2 Life in the UK test certificates (originals and copies)
D) List of trips out of the country, with total days added up
E) Employer letter showing continuing employment, pay rate, SOC code
F) 1 pay statement and 1 matching bank statement showing the deposit
G) 3 pieces of proof of cohabitation dated 2010, 2011, 2012
Everyone was ever so nice. Thanks Solihull, and thanks immigrationboards.com. Now one more year, and I can use the British Citizenship pages on here to have that go just as well!