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Hi all

New long residence guidance is out , valid from 10 Apr 2013.
http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/sitec ... iew=Binary

Before this, only one single gap which is 10 days or less used to be disregarded for long residence applications. Now you can have multiple gaps as long as they are 28 days or less. I found it very good news actually.

see page 20 of the guidance.


Gap(s) in lawful residence
You may grant the application if an applicant:
- has short gaps in lawful residence through making previous applications out of time by
no more than 28 calendar days, and
- meets all the other requirements for lawful residence.


For Example
An applicant has three gaps in their lawful residence due to submitting three separate applications out of time.
These were 9, 17 and 24 days out of time.
Question Would you grant the application in this case?
Answer Yes. Grant the application as the rules allow for a periods of overstaying of 28 days or less.

The new guidelines are confusing.

So, does this mean that, for example, if an applicant submits an application before the 28 days out of time deadline and the UKBA takes 3 months to approve the application(meaning technically the applicant has overstayed by around 4 months by then), then would they still be fine under these new guidelines?

Hi zen,

You are confusing the above changes. It is to do with gaps between applications I.e., if the previous permission to stay expires and the applicant makes a fresh application even after 28 days it will still be considered valid. Whereas previously it was less than 10 days.

Hope this helps.

Thanks!

Sohel

This certainly is a good news for many but the million dollar question is, if this rule is in retrospection or for the applications made after 10th April 2013?

zen135 wrote:So, does this mean that, for example, if an applicant submits an application before the 28 days out of time deadline and the UKBA takes 3 months to approve the application(meaning technically the applicant has overstayed by around 4 months by then), then would they still be fine under these new guidelines?

An application that was made when the applicant has valid visa but took long time for UKBA to process (so visa expired while application was with UKBA) will automatically cause the existing visa to extend until such time that the application is decided. So in such cases you will not overstay your visa illegally as your visa has automatically extended.

Damanisshallo wrote:This certainly is a good news for many but the million dollar question is, if this rule is in retrospection or for the applications made after 10th April 2013?

I think its clearly said on page 23 of the guidance.

See below
The Immigration Rules were amended with effect from 1 October 2012. The changes affect applications which were made on or after 9 July 2012 and are decided on or after 1 October 2012.
If the continuous residence period includes periods of overstaying before further leave being granted before 1 October 2012, you may disregard these periods for indefinite leave to remain (ILR) provided the period does not exceed 28 days.

Even before this guideline become more clearer in april 2013 the 28 days rules already exist. Despite under old guideline only 10 days single gap is allowed but still for 28 days a person is not counted as overstayer after its visa/section 3C expiry. However, thanks to UKBA to make it much clearer now.