- WP granted in-country May 04 (whilst finishing of studies)
- Passport sent to HO (in-country)
- WP Leave to Remain visa was put into the passport showing that it is valid from May 04 to May 09.
- actual employment with company only commenced end of July 04. They are a big company so they usually apply for visas for all of their graduate hires early on - hence the early WP approval date.
- beginning of July 04 I happened to go on holiday outside of the UK. Upon return, the WP LTR visa page of my passport was stamped with the date I returned (Jul 04) at the bottom of the page. Since then all subsequent stamps from travelling were on different pages, making it feel like this July stamp was some sort of 'validating' stamp.
So my question is: does my 'clock' for ILR start ticking from May or from July?
The thing is, had I not travelled out of the uk after the in-country visa switch then the first stamp would have been of a much later date, which makes me think that the Heathrow stamp on the visa page is kind of irrelevant but it is May 04 which is on the LTR which counts, i.e. I guess my previous leave as student got annulled when I switched to WP in May, even though employment only commenced end of July.
Thoughts?
