Myself and my wife have recently got an FLR(M) Pre July 2012 Rules extension at PEO Liverpool.
Due to my wife's age (unwillingness to study) / the fact that we will eventually be moving to her country her English wasn't good enough for LIUK / B1 so we had to go for a straight renewal.
I prepared the application for my wife as it was straightforward considering our circumstances
Heres a quick summary to assist others with the PEO experience.
-mrploddy
We had an early morning appointment and heres a timeline.
- Turned up at PEO and did security check.
- Got given ticket for checkin.
- Went to checkin desk and handed over the application form and first basic checks were done.
- Given caseworking ticket.
- Asked to go over to caseworking desk and basically just asked to hand all our documents over then sent back and told to wait for Biometrics.
- Called to Biometrics - my wife had a bit of trouble with the fingerprints so they had to do it twice.
- Went back out and handed over the passport to caseworker.
- Caseworker took our passports in to back office and did some checks
- On the way back out he asked us why were not not applying for SET(M) so explained.
- I'd missed one question on form so we were asked to fill that in.
- After that we were kept waiting and about ann hour later called to a different desk and told our application was successful
- Sent back to original checkin desk and given approval letter.
Documents submitted
- Application Form
- Marriage certificate and translation with copies
- English Test at A1 Level - Trinity GESE Grade 2 from www.englishexamcentres.co.uk
- Photos from the past 2 years showing us in different places
- I've only been with my current employer for 3 months so had current employer letter, wage slips and coding notice for current employer and pay slips and P60's / P45's from previous employers and copies of everything.
- Correspondence Trail which included
a) Council tax bills
B) Joint bank statements
c) National Insurance Letter
d) Water bills
e) Electricity biils
f) Tennancy Agreement
Council tax and water and bank statement were in joint names.
What documents did they retain
- Copies of employment documents.
- Copies of marriage certificate and translation - they accepted a self translated certificate without any issue.
- Copies of correspondence trail
- English certificate (Copy)
What they didn't retain
- 6 months bank statements
- Photos printouts
- Past six months bank statements verified by bank for my account and joint account
What we left with
1) Our original documents minus the retained documents
2) An approval letter
My Comments / Thoughts
1) Don't go for a PEO appointment unless your case is very straightforward and there are no gaps / issues with your paperwork.
2) A PEO appointment is very much a paperwork exercise - if your paperwork is water tight and orderered properly and easy to understand you will hardly even speak to anyone - in our case we only spoke maybe less than 2 minutes to our caseworker if that ?
3) Make sure your paperwork is in sections and with index sheets tied together with treasury tags - make the Case Workers job easy - give him / her a random bundle of papers and it will take longer to get a decision.
4) Make copies of EVERYTHING, we had identical bundles of everything and in the same order.
5) If you come here on a spouse visa make sure you put your foreign spouse on to accounts as soon as he / she gets here eg council tax / water bills - in our area the council and the water companies had no issue with putting our account in to joint names as well as our home's tennancy agreement - if you have a trail of correspondence in joint names it will make your life a LOT easier.
6) Read and read again the immigration rules - I overheard 2 cases where people had made mistakes with the application and got sent home - some who arriived after we arrived - if you aren't 100% sure get professional help or else you can kiss goodbye to the £1000 fee
- In our case I followed the guidance on the FLR(M) guidance notes - don't give them what they don't ask for UNLESS you have a good reason - we included photos in our bundle but we had a rock solid trail of correspondence in joint names you only need to include extra evidence if there are gaps / issues with the evidence that they request.
7) Book early - if your appointment is due in May / June book it before the 4th April and you will pay the old fee before the yearly increase!
I'm not quite sure wha the next 2 years holds for us - we got 2 years leave under Chapter 8 rules - I'm not sure if we'll be in a place to move to my wife's country - various personal and financial issues - I'm wondering if I should try and force my wife to get to the point she could go to SET(M) as these new NHS charges will add £200 per year eg £400 to a FLR(M) application making it the same price as SET(M). I'm paying thousands a year in tax and national insurance so at least for foreign spouses of Brtitish nationals I'm not really in agreement with these new proposals but don't think I'll have a choice / say in the matter. 9) Make sure your application form is up to date - I started filling out the application in February using PDF but they brought out a new form so had to copy everything over to the new form - the lesson is up untill a week before your appointment always keep checking to make sure that you are in compliance with all current requirements - ignorance is not an excuse as far as the PEO is concerned.
