ILR Success at Croydon PEO - More than 270 days absences

[anooppunshi]

Hi

I got a lot of help from this forum, so I thought I shall share my case with other who may find it useful.
My case details:

2005 - 2 years Work permit,
2007 - A further 5 years work permit
2007 - Converted into HSMP
2009 - Converted into Tier 1 (General) which was valid until 2013)

I have a total of 270 days absences from UK. None of these were more than 90 days in single trip. There were two trips which were unpaid, one being 47 days and other 8 days. 30 days were business trips and the rest were paid annual holidays.
Evidence I had gathered for the application to support my high number of absences were:
1) A letter from current employer confirming
a) employment details,
b) that I have never taken any unpaid leaves during last two years and
c) my annual leave entitlement
3) A letter from my previous employer confirming:
a) employment details
b) annual leave entitlement
c) Dates of my unpaid leaves
3) A separate letter from my previous employer confirming my date of business travel
4) An extensive and comprehensive worksheet sheet showing dates of departure, dates of return, country visited, purpose of visit, page number in the passport showing the immigration stamp for each trip abroad and further analysis of days e.g. without counting weekends and bank holidays etc. It also contained a summary showing the total number of days outside as a result of travelling to my country of origin, business trip, other holidays and medical treatment.
5) An email confirmation from UKBA confirming that absences consisting of paid leaves and business trips are normally disregarded for the purposes of calculating qualifying period. (Please note that I did not show this email to the case worker because he didn't ask me a single question about my absences)
The case workder seemed very much interested in P60s which fortunately I had for all previous five years, 3 months payslips. He took all the letters that I had arranged from my employers.
Since I had been on work permit before my current tier 1 visa, they verified that separately at the ground floor reception, so I would highly recommend that if you have your work permit, please take them with you.
In total I would say it took him 10 minutes to check the documents. Unfortunately due to some system problem, they couldn't issue us the visa vignette until 3:30pm.
If anyone wants to look at my worksheet for absences or template of the letter from employer, I am happy to share these. Please email me at anooppunshi@yahoo.com
Cheers
Anoop

[claudiafan]

Big congratulations!!!