CASE Details : Limited company director and employee and Wife as dependent applicant.
Document List : You can find these easily from the site.
Office : Croydon
Process :
1. Reached Croydon office at 8:20
2. Security Check done and online appointment verified , On ground floor i collected my Coupon (26)
3. Went to 1st Floor and paid fees using Barclays card
4. Same floor they were calling the coupon numbers , waited 20 minutes for my first call
5. The person verified my documents (All my passports , Application) and told me to wait for Biometric call [ Took 15 minutes to do the first check ]
Got my biometric call after 15 minutes
Passed my First Bumpy Ride : Biometric machines were working
6. Lady in the Biometric machine room asked couple of questions and was smiling all the time and was quick enough to complete the biometric stuff in 10 minutes for both of us.
Next Phase : Allotment of case worker
7. After a wait of almost 2 hours , i got my call and my case worker called me on counter 24
8. He greeted us and started talking about the next step, he asked us the following :
-> Do you have all the documents , specially salary slips and other papers? Replied YES
-> Do you have photocopy of all documents with you ? Replied YES
-> Asked if i am a Self Employed? I told NO i am employed to my Limited company, he asked me what is the difference and i told him about the NI types, but i dont think he could find the difference
9. He asked me to submit the folders with documents to him so that he can start verifying , I asked him if i can sit and explain about , how i had arranged the documents in folder? He just said NO and told us to either go outside for a coffee or the small shop on second floor. I rather chose to sit on the seats just opposite to him so that he can see me and call me if required
10. He called me alsmost 4 times to ask small questions about my previous stay, my first date of entry..etc. After that i was back to my seat
11. Waited another 30 minutes and FIRST shocker, he asked me to show proof of NI , which i told him that i dont have to pay NI as i have not reached the threshold salary for NI, this was clearly mentioned in the Accountant letter with the type of NI i need to pay. He was not satisfied with my answer and asked me what all types of payments i had done till now to HMRC. I had mentioned that with proofs [ PAYE screenshots, VAT payments ..etc ]. He was not satisified and he told that he will get this clarified from his senior, he was away for 15 minutes, i was waiting.
12. Waited 15 minutes and when he was back at his desk, he called me again, He asked me the same question why you are not paying NI, which i replied with the same answer that , i dont have to pay that. He asked me to show a communication from HMRC that i dont have to pay NI, I didnt have any clue what to say to this person. I showed him my ORIGINAL salary slips + Accountant letter that i dont have to pay any NI. He went back again to his senior to ask the same thing. This time he came up with new thing, He told me to give the welcome Kit letter from HMRC which contains a proof for NI. I was clueless, i never got any such letter. I have all the letters provided by HMRC from the begining and none of them was a nearly match for the doc ,which he was asking. He told me that i need to contact my accountant and get that letter posted to UKBA and then result will be given, i was little bit confused but was not panicked.
13. He told me to either submit the document by 4:00 Pm for the same day decision. I asked him, what if that document is not there with my accountant, he told that my case will be refused, i was not able to find any answers for that. He told me that he will be back in an hour after the lunch and i need to call the accountant and check what he needs to say. I called the accountant and checked if there is any such document he ever recieved from HMRC, he told me that there is no document of such type for a Limited company and explained me that why i should not be paying the NI with the threshold limit for my company. He did not had anything new to offer for the NI proof, he told me that he can give me a letter in a different format if the CW is ready to accept. I wanted to have a look again on the Tier 1 guideline policy to find out what is he refering to , i found on one page, that HMRC welcome kit is for self employed for showing NI proof if there salary is too less, i thought he took my case as a Self employed and checking the docs on that basis. Now the next thing was to raise this to him after the lunch and check if this could make him happy.
CLIMAX :
14 . He was back at his desk and he called me as soon he saw me and told me that no need to prove NI , he verified with his colleagues about this and he came to know Limited companies needs to be checked in different way.
, he was happy with other documents and gave my VISA letter after 1 hour.
