By the grace of Almighty the gracious and the most merciful, I have been granted ILR with my wife in Solihull PEO today. A big thanks to the forum members for this.
A brief case history with the list of the documents I prepared can be found at this thread
Here is a short account of what happened at PEO:
- Appointment 10:15 AM 15 Nov
- Arrived at 9:45
- A very nice old person at the first counter had a glance at our form
- Usual security check and we were given a token
- Within 15 mins we were called to go to a counter
-Asked for the form and passports
-Asked for 12 months salary slips, calculated all the salaries and tallied it with the one mentioned in the form;
- Asked for bank statement and appreciated i have marked all the payments
- As bank statements were in joint names, so she asked for one cohab proof for 2010-2011. As we had many proofs both with joint and single names, she picked up the council bill for 2010-2011 which was addressed to both.
- Asked for photocopies of the documents and took them all.
- Life in the UK
- Then she left us for a few checks while we waited for a few minutes.
- She came back with the good news that she was happy with our application and she has approved our ILR provided we had no criminal convictions.
- We paid the fees at cashier's window.
- Waited about 15 minutes and were called for the biometrics which took another 15 minutes.
- After giving the biometrics, we waited for about 15 minutes and were told everything sems in order so far and we could come back at 1300 hours.
- We returned at 1300 hours and after half an hour wait, we were handed over the ILR grant letters.
In summary Documents asked by CW:
- Set-O form
- photographs
- 12 months payslips
- 12 months bank statements
- LIUK test certificates
- Council tax bill as cohab proof along with the bank statements (both in joint names)
- Photo copies of passport, pay slips, statements etc.
Observations:
1. Solihull PEO was really worth the extra effort we took by travelling 150 miles to reach there. Although the building is small and kids can really get irritable but I found the staff very welcoming and positive.
2. We had plethora of documents with us, but we only handed over the ones which the CW asked. We had divided the documents in five folders:
1. Main documents
2. Cohab documents
3. All the photocopies of 1 and 2.
4. Supplementary documents like cover letter, P60s, Employer letter, Absence sheet, all previous salary slips.
5. A lot of random mail received during last two years.
Only 1,2, 3 were visible to the CW and 4,5 were sitting in a shoulder bag out of reach of the CW.
3. I did not mark the salary slips but marked the relevant entries in the bank statements with a lead pencil. Marking or not marking does not make any difference, IMHO, as CWs are highly skilled to identify the relevant information. Though, I like to think it might make their work easy if we could highlight the relevant entries.
4. Number of Cohab documents is irrelevant for SET-O applicants as the CW only considered the joint bank statements and joint council tax bill.
Once again, I would like to thank a lot for all the forum members who contributed positively during my quest for information here
![Smile :)](./images/smilies/icon_smile.gif)
p.s. I will share the cover letter and other stuff which I prepared for the application shortly as I find some time.