I have been granted ILR with my wife and son in Solihull PEO. A big thanks to the forum members for this.
i arrived in uk on work permit. switch to tier1 after 1.5 years. so tier1 expired in april this year which was extended.
- Appointment 10:40 AM 16 Nov
- Arrived at 10:00.
- initial look at the form , security check and given token.
- around 10:15 mins called at a counter to meet case worker.
- she was smiling and mentioned that she would be fine if my wife and son sit behind. but we chose to sit together.
- asked about purpose of visit to PEO, applying in which category.
-Asked for the form , life in the uk results and passports
- asked us if we want the biometrics at a different address than home address.
we chose office address as are required to sign.
she asked to fill the office address as the correspondance address.
- asked when were the photos taken
i had photos from March but mentioned that they were recent. more on this later.
- she spent some time checking my absences page.
she commented that i havent been away much in the last 5 years.
i handed over the absences sheet based on template from the forum ( had changed the template a bit as some of my time away was work + vacation).
I was away for 193 days in total.
for some time away it was mixed with some work and some vacation.
i told have a letter from employer. she told that she doesnt need as was within limit it but now that i have got one she will have it.
As she was asking in a relaxed manner i told her that my understanding was 180 days is the limit.
she said it is 180 but they do consider upto 225 ( i guess this is the discretion of the officer)
-Asked for 12 months salary slips, calculated all the salaries and tallied it with the total mentioned in the form;
- she couldnt arrive at the same figure so i helped out but pointing out to include bonus etc. case worked thanked me for this.
- Asked for bank statement. i had marked the entries for salary by pencil. she liked this and tallied with the salary slips.
- asked what do i have for cohab.
- i supplied concil bill and water bills. she looked at the issue date and said cannot use some documents.
she was looking for the something in the Nov 2010 to Nov 2012 period. immediate last two years.
note: i think this contradicts with what i had read on forum.
other proof i had were very old for our initial two years in uk. she herself suggested that she will council for 2011, use one joint bank statement, so now needs some other proof for the last two years.
she asked if i have salary slips for my wife. luckily i had her last two salary slips (had only carried p60 for her and these salary slips were lying around so had them in my misc documents folder)
she said that my salary slip has address on it and if my wife's salary slip also has it then we are good.
she took one of my salary statement and said she will use that along with salary slip of my wife. the salary slip had the same address on them.
- she spent some time making some checks
- Asked for photocopies and thanked that this will save her time.
i had missed photocopy of bank statement. she said its fine and she will do it for me.
- Then she left us for a few checks while we waited for a few minutes.
- She then said that if the biometric check doesnt bring up anything and payment goes fine, we are good to go.
- We paid the fees at cashier's window.
i used my credit card ( master card ). had spoken with my bank earlier and made sure there was enough balance on my card.
as a backup had prepared payment page with my debit card. i was also carrying a blank payment page printout in case had to use some other means at last minute.
- Waited about 15 minutes and were called for the biometrics which took another 15 minutes.
during the biometric of my son they found that the case worker had used the photo of some other child from prev appoinment.
the old lady taking the biometrics was most helpful and said she would sort this out.
then she came back and told that we would need new photos for my son.
Actually i made the mistake of using photos taken in March for my son.
the same photos were used for Tier1 extension in March. hence she said they would like new photos and will guide me where to get them.
she said lets finish the biometrics which we did all over again.
then she guided about the nearby shop. we took our son and got the phtos done. my son wasnt keeping well and it took 15 mins to get one shot.
handed over the photos and were told to come back in an hour.
- the lady advised me to switch my mobile on once outside in case they have some questions.
- after we came back at 1:15pm , we were given the grant letter and original documents.
summary of docs used.
- photographs
- 12 months payslips
- 12 months bank statements
- LIUK test certificates
- cohab
- Council tax bill
- one salary slip of wife
- one page from joint bank statement.
- Photo copies of passport, pay slips, statements etc. took only some pages from passport.
Observations:
1. Solihull PEO seems to have very helpful staff. Everyone we dealt with ( security office, case worker, biometric dept) was eager to help.
from what i read, some PEO take payment before we see the case offier.
i discussed this with the lady taking biometric. she told that at Solihull they aim to make it easier for the applicant. she smiled and told that they would get good reviews from me then
2. Handed over only the documents require by case worked. as mentioned by others in forum its good to divide documents in 3 sets. must-have documents , photo copies, misc documents.
3. Making the caseworker's job easy by highlighting salary entries etc. seems to be a sensible to do.
thanks to all again.
-S
sent an email to home office about my son's card