FLR (M) application process

[krs133]

Hello

I am a British citizen who has been living in the UK with my non-EU partner since March 2010 (she is presently on tier 2). As of March 2012 we will therefore be eligible to apply for an unmarried partner visa. We are going to apply as soon as we are eligible in March 2012 as we are aware that changes are being made to family visas from April onwards. Because of this, we would also like the application to be approved by the end of March 2012.

My questions are

(i) We are probably going to make an appointment for the premium service. I have looked on the UKBA website and there appears to be a separate process for making a visa application and for making a PEO appointment. I would like to make a PEO appointment for a March date as soon as they become available. Is it possible to make an appointment before you have made an application, or does the appointment process require you to have submitted the application first? And is there any facility for booking the appointment as part of the online visa application, or are the two things completely separate?

(ii) Our specific point of qualification is 4 March 2012. The UKBA website states that if you make a premium appointment, the date of your application is the date of your appointment. Can I therefore take it that if (for example) we submitted an online application in mid February, and made an appointment for mid March, the application would not be refused on the grounds that we had not lived together for two years when the online application was submitted?

(iii) In the event that we could not get a premium appointment and made a postal application instead, how would the 'crossover' period work in the event of a delay? E.g. let's say we sent the application in mid March but they did not get round to approving it until April. Would the March rules still apply (on the basis that that was when we made the application) or would we have to reapply under the new rules?

thanks in advance for any help you can give.