Please help with complicated FLR(IED)

[rella]

I'm posting this in both the HSMP and General Immigration forums. Moderators, please feel free to remove one if you'd like. I just want to make sure you see this post.

My husband got his HSMP approval letter this morning. His case is a bit complicated and I really need some direction before we start calling the Home Office people.

Here's the recap of the situation:

We came to the UK in 2003 for hubby to go to grad school here. After a few months, it became clear that working with this particular prof was a mistake. At that same point, hubby started getting mountains of consulting work. So, we decided for him to apply to HSMP, and work part-time on his student visa while awaiting the HSMP decision. He withdrew from the uni a few days after submitting his HSMP app.

At that point, the rules had just changed -- this was in April. So, the HSMP and FLR were separately applied for. We called Croyden and HSMP and they agreed that hubby would be legal and not overstaying, since the HSMP would cover him. The consensus on this forum was the same.

Now, it seems more clear that the HSMP is not a visa app, and that only the FLR is. So, are we technically overstayers?

Now, another complication from changes in rules... The rules changed on Oct 1 about which visas can switch in-country. Before, any legal visa, other than visitor could switch to HSMP. That is no longer the case and people on student visas who did not graduate, can no longer switch in-country. We just got the decision letter, so we are well past that Oct 1 changeover.

So... what should we do? We want to do everything we can to try to get this FLR through. We have an HSMP letter for in-country, but we are not able to switch visas in-country. Can we use this HSMP letter for entry clearance instead? If so, do we have to go back to home country (U.S.) or is there any possibility of going to Paris?

HELP!!!

We don't know how to approach this from here.