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Dear all,

I have legal residence since Feb 07 (on work permit and then Tier 1 gen). I am about to apply for ILR but I have a problem of a big gap - breaking the continuous stay. I was away from Sept 08 to April 09 - working on my business over a few countries in Asia.

I learnt that for self-employment as myself, the HEO would not disregard this gap.

Any cases of success or failure?

What could I do? provide letters from clients about projects etc.

Thanks.

jinhooi wrote:Dear all,

I have legal residence since Feb 07 (on work permit and then Tier 1 gen). I am about to apply for ILR but I have a problem of a big gap - breaking the continuous stay. I was away from Sept 08 to April 09 - working on my business over a few countries in Asia.

I learnt that for self-employment as myself, the HEO would not disregard this gap.

Any cases of success or failure?

What could I do? provide letters from clients about projects etc.

Thanks.

from my experience, by breaking the continuous stay you loose your right for ILR. I applied for 10 year long residense and was refused due to the gap "overstay" though I was in uk during these gap and it was my employeer responsibility for applying late!! i paid the price and lost my right for the 10 years.

Being an overstayed is different ( and more serious!!!) disqualification than exceeding your out-of-country limit. You can justify why you had to be away for so long, but there is no justification within rules for overstaying inside Uk, exceptions and discretions aside.

Would you be able to account for each of those exceeding out of country days? What does that mean to your business, your Uk balance sheet etc.

You need to build a business case for the exceeded days.