ILR Success at Croydon PEO on Tier 1 (General)

EKRU · Post by **EKRU** » Mon Nov 14, 2011 1:44 pm

I have been a passive reader of this forum and wanted to say thank you to everyone who posted their ILR stories. They really helped me prepare for my experience at the Croydon PEO today.

Key things I wanted to share in return.
My case
Applied as Tier 1 (general) on 5 years work experience. Had had two work permits over the last five years before the Tier 1 visa.
Currently on maternity leave.

1. Had appoitnment at 8am
Arrived at 7.20am and there was a queue of around 15 people outside the buidling.
2. Went inside, got ticket number 9 and had my form checked at reception.
(Lady checked applicatno form, asked if I had P60s to prove that I took employment under the previous work permits)
3. Paid

By 8am I was in the waiting area waiting to be called by the case officer. Only a couple of windown were in operation and I wasn't called until 9am when many more windows became open.

The case officer spent 1.5 hours on my documents. She asked for applicatno form. In it I stated in response to question 6.2 that there was a separate attachment with the entries/exists. She immediately asked for that and spent 30min reviewing it. She started typing dates from my three passports (two expired ones) into her computer but quickly gave up and typed what I believe to be the majority of dates from my travel log.
I had a total of 250 days out (not counting day in/out) out of these 80 were on business. She then asked for letter from employers (I had two previuos employers for whom I travelled on business) confirming that. I had these letters. The letters clearly stated my dates of employement and the months and years in which I travelled for business (but not the precise dates).

After dealing with the travel (she did not tell me whether she was ok with them or not) she turned to my payslips and calculated my earnings assessment under Tier 1. She cross checked them with the bank statements. She also checked all my P60s for the past 5 years

Then she checked my savings statements that I submitted in support of maintenance (section 5).

She checked the letter from employer confirming my maternity dates, my baby's birth certificate and Life in the UK test.

She did not ask me questions, only when she wanted certain documents. She also asked for photocopies of all the above documents and the passports.

It was 10.30am when she finished and told me that I will be granted ILR. I was told to wait an hour. My visa was ready in 40min.

When I went to get it (i.e. just after 11am) the entire waiting room was packed with people.

So my advice - get an early morning appointment and take more documents rather than less. and photocopies of all documents, including every single passport page.

tier1extension · Post by **tier1extension** » Mon Nov 14, 2011 7:19 pm

thanks for sharing your experience. congratulations for getting the ILR.

may i ask about section 5. you mentioned you showed evidence for maintenance. i thought there is no maintenance requirement for ILR? i remember for tier 1 general application you need to show £800 for the past 3 months but this is not the case for ILR.

EKRU · Post by **EKRU** » Mon Nov 14, 2011 7:57 pm

sorry, incorrect use of words on my part.
in section five they ask to prove your financial position to make sure you wont be requiring support from public funds.
so payslips should be sufficient but i also showed my savings account and my husband's earnings ( because obviously on maternity i wont be receiving enough to support myself for the entire duration of maternity leave)

i think as long as you have a stable source of income, that is all they care about here.

tier1extension · Post by **tier1extension** » Mon Nov 14, 2011 7:59 pm

thanks!

shoei13 · Post by **shoei13** » Mon Nov 14, 2011 10:30 pm

Can you please explain when u wrote letters from previous employers....Are these letter explaining your absences of business trips or do we require letters from employers about our employment at those companies.

I havent got letters from employers but i got P60/P45 from previous employments would that be alright. please answer

EKRU · Post by **EKRU** » Tue Nov 15, 2011 1:03 am

i obtained letters from previous employers about a month before the application date. the main reason for getting them was to explain the total number of absences which wa over 180.
so these letters stated my employment dates and then the dates (e.g. Jan -March 2009) when i travelled for work.
if you dont need that kind of evodenve then to prove previous employment P60 is sufficient

SunnyG · Post by **SunnyG** » Wed Nov 16, 2011 4:38 pm

Congratulations!

For the question 6.2, did you fill in the 8 lines on the set o form, or did you just marked with some explanation there saying there is another separate absence list?

BTW, did you use a photo taken within one month, or it doesn't matter actually?

EKRU · Post by **EKRU** » Wed Nov 16, 2011 6:29 pm

SunnyG, for q6.2 i did not fill out any of the eight lines but instead wrote on the first line "see attached travel log"
photo was taken in the past month but to be honest unless you ve dramatically changed the way you look, no one will notice if the photo was taken now or a yaer ago
my husband uses his old photos all the time and noone has asked anything about when they were taken

SunnyG · Post by **SunnyG** » Thu Nov 17, 2011 2:01 am

EKRU wrote:SunnyG, for q6.2 i did not fill out any of the eight lines but instead wrote on the first line "see attached travel log"
photo was taken in the past month but to be honest unless you ve dramatically changed the way you look, no one will notice if the photo was taken now or a yaer ago
my husband uses his old photos all the time and noone has asked anything about when they were taken

Many thanks EKRU! Very useful info!

One more question about the 6.1: do you know that if I first enter in the uk with student visa and get the current work visa in uk , shall I fill in the start date of the current visa for q6.1?

EKRU · Post by **EKRU** » Thu Nov 17, 2011 2:10 am

SunnyG, that was exactly my situation and for that question i put the date that was on my first work permit ( from which i started the five year count for the ilr) although i had been working full time for several months on my student visa until then (dont know if its true now but five years ago one was allowed to work full time on student visa provided the course was officially over)

SunnyG · Post by **SunnyG** » Thu Nov 17, 2011 2:28 am

hi EKRU, I had the same situation as I worked with the student visa for 4 month then changed to the WP. I was told one could use the student visa to work full time up to 4 months.

But anyway, I 'll put my current visa start date for the 6.1.

Many many thanks again for ur quick reply!

EKRU wrote:SunnyG, that was exactly my situation and for that question i put the date that was on my first work permit ( from which i started the five year count for the ilr) although i had been working full time for several months on my student visa until then (dont know if its true now but five years ago one was allowed to work full time on student visa provided the course was officially over)

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ILR Success at Croydon PEO on Tier 1 (General)

ILR Success at Croydon PEO on Tier 1 (General)

thanks

thanks