ILR (Indefinite Leave to Remain) granted

[MrDodge]

My wife received her ILR today, so I thought I'd post the story here in case it helps someone. We were careful getting the documents together, and didn't have any trouble after sending the application form off.

date of application: 9 January 2013
date ILR granted: 11 April 2013

We used the SCS (Settlement Checking Service) run by Brent Council in London. It cost £80 and wasn't our first choice of location as we live out in Surrey, but when I phoned round the London councils on 4th January, very few appointments were available. Wandsworth had nothing for the
rest of January! So if you decide to use the SCS, book well in advance. I wanted to use an SCS because I didn't want to risk documents getting lost in the post. If there had been an option to deliver the package by hand in London, I would have done that, but infuriatingly the Border Agency insist
that you post the application to Durham, which is a very long way away for most people in the UK. I know that if you use Post Office Special Delivery, the probability of them losing your package is low, and that you can use the tracking number to demonstrate to the Border Agency that you tried to apply on time. But if you are that unlucky person, and your package is lost, it will surely turn out to be very stressful and expensive to replace things like passports, and whilst utility bills have little value in themselves, I expect you'd have some delay and difficulty dealing with UKBA without original documents. There's no way the Post Office would compensate you sufficiently for the trouble.

What I didn't realize at the time was that it takes months to get ILR granted, and if you need to leave the country, perhaps due to a family emergency, then you void the whole application, and have to start, and pay all over again. Massively unfair, I think, and that risk probably makes the Premium same day service at a public enquiry office the best option, even if it does cost another £300. I've read that a waiting time of 5 months is more typical, so perhaps we were prioritized because we had used the SCS, but I'm only speculating.

Some assorted useful bits of information that I learned from the Registrar:
-the ILR form and guidance vaguely mentions financial requirements that have to be met in order to qualify, but never properly specifies what they are. (As I understand this vagueness meant that the requirements were only really established after a court battle.) It seems that people who got their Fiance visa before June 2012 don't actually need to demonstrate very much at all. I haven't had a job for several years, and neither has my wife. We live off my savings, live in privately rented accomodation and have never claimed any state benefits. We had no payslips to show
at all - I just submitted my current account statements. I didn't even need to show my savings statements, and the Registrar has said couples without any employment or savings had no problem at all getting ILR. The new rules post June 2012 seem to be more demanding, but at least they're clear.

-home printouts of bank statements are NOT actually accepted by UKBA, even if they have been stamped by the bank. This
is despite information to the contrary here:
http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/polic ... ndix-fmse/
section "Evidence of Financial Requirements under Appendix FM" 1.(v)(2)

-On evidence of cohabitation: the form states that they require 6 letters from 3 different sources spread across the 2 year period. The Registrar said that this is an absolute bare minimum, and it would be better to have 18+ letters. Original printed utility bill statements with both names on them are acceptable. We had a letter from the GP, but this was rejected as the surgery manager hadn't bothered to sign it. Medical prescriptions are not accepted. The Council tax bill was also accepted, but I would make sure that you are not "accidentally" claiming the 25% single person discount on it! It probably helped that we had been at the same address for the entire period in question. I would have felt more comfortable at application time if I had made a greater effort to gather evidence from other sources like TVLA or DVLA, but we had enough anyway.

-the Registar knew of cases where the couple were applying 2 weeks after the expiry date of the FLR visa, and UKBA didn't seem to mind.

Hope that helps. Good luck everyone.

[gmx]

Congrats MrDodge!

I observe that SET(M) is indeed usually quicker to process than the other routes.

SCS is only for SET(M), I believe

[Kevin24]

Congratulations on your wife getting her ILR. Thank you for the kind words about My Local Council's SCS. I think they must be providing a good service. Few people who have got their ILR using the Council's SCS, were very happy Customers.