ILR success Croydon PEO 26th Feb

[elixir]

Thanks a lot everyone on this forum for sharing their experience. This forum has proven to be an invaluable resource while preparing the application.

We had an appointment today, and we went well ahead of time (8am, for an appointment at 9). I was pleasantly surprised that we were allowed to go in anyways, and we quite quickly got our token number, payment was processed, application checking was done, biometric done (all within the first half hour) and then we were sent to second floor.

Around 9am, the case worker called us, took all the documents, and just closed the shutter!

An hour later, she opened the shutter, gave us documents to sign, and when i asked, she said ILR has been approved and BRP will be sent by post. All in all, in and out in 2 hours.

Mine was a very straightforward case:

came to uk in march 2008 on work permit, changed to Tier 1 next year, and got an extension last year. wife came to uk in may 2008. I had a total of 81 days of absences.

Upon examining my folder, i realized following are the documents she had taken:

1. Employment reference letter - original taken
2. Employer certification that I had not taken any unpaid leaves: original taken
3. payslip and bank statements for last one year - photocopies taken
4. Life in the UK test : photocopies taken.
5. Cover letter and a letter explaining my leaves were taken.

For cohabitation:

1. January 2013 document taken (joint bank statement)
2. September 2012 document taken (rental agreement)
3. March document taken (electricity bill)
4. December 2011 taken (council tax letter)
5. Barclays letter - Feb 2011 taken

Overall, I had provided a set of documents for each month going back 2 years - so very few of them were taken by the caseworker.

Hope this helps others.

My experience with Croydon PEO has been that it is a very large bureaucracy but not one where everyone is consistently rude or inefficient. Overall, I think if your documents are in order, Croydon can prove to be quite efficient indeed. I was told of numerous horror stories before I went, but I found the overall attitude cold but efficient.

[Isaac01]

Congratulations on your success and thanks for sharing.

[manisankarmani]

Many congratulations !

I found you submitted a letter

2. Employer certification that I had not taken any unpaid leaves: original taken

Can you please confirm whether its for the employment when you were in work permit or its for the current one?

Thanks,

[technoguy]

Many congratulations !

I found you submitted a letter

2. Employer certification that I had not taken any unpaid leaves: original taken

Can you please confirm whether its for the employment when you were in work permit or its for the current one?

Thanks,

Hello I also have this question. I am a Tier 2 and will be applying to Croydon next month. I have hired a solicitor and he said I don't need a employer letter as my leaves outside UK was less than 180 days. But in this forum everyone claims that for a Tier 2 employee employer letter is required for any number of absentees. But the solicitor claims otherwise and said he has many successful Tier 2 applications without providing letter. So were you asked for this letter by case worker.

[elixir]

Hi there - I took the letter to be on the safe side. It was for whole 5 yrs (I have been with the same employer for 5yrs), and all my absences from UK were holidays, taken out of paid leaves. I just took a letter saying that I have not taken any unpaid leaves in last five years.

Now, as I said previously, this letter (original) was taken by the caseworker. So I would tend to believe that this was probably required.

As you may have figured out, 11L section's wording is vague at best. It says that we need to substantiate that we have been in compliance with previous visas (i.e. work permit in my case). Truth is, WP didn't really have much conditions attached to it, except that it had to be for the role for which the work permit was taken out and a certain salary had to be earned. For this, I provided the P60 for that year (to prove the point regarding the salary) and got a letter from company saying that i have been employed for 5yrs.

But - the solicitors are doing this stuff day in and day out. so they would know better than me.

[elixir]

And as a response to technoguy - i put all my documents in a folder and handed over to the caseworker and she took out whatever she needed. She didn't ask me anything as we probably spoke 3 of 4 sentences in all!