Long story short - my experience was overall very pleasant. I found the UKBA case worker, biometric lady and initial person to be very polite and friendly.
Hope my experience will suitably guide others
.1. Current vignette : Tier 1 (G)
2. Date of PEO Appointment : 06-Mar-2013
3. Number of dependants: 1
4. Employment: Employed (Director limited company)
5. Payment mode : Credit Card
6. Name of PEO Applied : Croydon
7: Approval letter: Given on the same day
8. BRP Received on: yet to receive
My appointment was at 10 AM. Went there at 9:15 AM and the guard asked to wait outside. Went inside at 9:30 AM only to be instructed by the security team to wait(security same as normally on an airport). They wanted to security check people in batches and started doing it only when 4 other candidates arrive. The guard and security team weren't polite and professional (it wasn't very rude too but we tend to ignore everything for visa
).We were instructed to go to first floor after a brief check at the ground floor (which also gave us a token number). On first floor we made our payment first (counter 1-5) and wait for our token to be called. It was called at 10:05 AM and the person put our details into the computer. The person (not case worker) was very polite and friendly. He checked our forms, photos and passports and asked us to go for biometric at second floor after putting all the details in the system.
We waited in the biometric area on second floor and our token was called very soon. The biometric lady was really very helpful and friendly. She even made my wife relaxed and cracked some jokes with her
. After biometric she asked us to wait on second floor waiting area till our token number was called.Finally the case worker called our token number at 11:30 AM. She asked us to submit some documents. I gave only those documents which she asked (though I had huge bundle of all my documents) -
i) Application Forms + Photos + Passport
ii) Payslips + Dividend vouchers
iii) Accountant letter for payment summaries(salary + dividend)
iv) Personal bank statement
v) Business bank statement
vi) All raised invoices
vii) My company contract letters with client
viii) Company house certificate
ix) Our joint council tax bill and utility bill (gas)
We also told her that we had photocopy of all the documents and this made her very happy. She took all the documents and went inside. We were called at 1 PM (yes after 1.5 hours) and she gave us approval letters. She didn't call us in between for anything. She told that BRP would come at home within 7 working days by secure delivery and we were told to go
.Finally thanks to this forum to help me out. I'm also thankful to my accountant who was very reasonable (all other accountants were asking huge £700.00 for the work). He provides me all the letters (gave me invoices summary, NI letter (to clarify my status as employed and my Class A NI status), company accounts etc but case worker didn't ask for it.