Successful ILR application experience

[cherrypie]

Hi All,
I was granted ILR yesterday and since this site has been such a useful resource for me I thought I would share my experience.

My immigration history is as follows:
- 1st Tier 1 visa – Jan 2009 – Application made from South Africa (entered UK in Jan 2009 for 5 days)
- 1st Tier 1 extension – Jan 2012 (entered UK in Dec 2011 to make application and left 2 days after visa was granted; re-entered UK in Nov 2012 with the intention of living here permanently)
- Spouse dependent visa granted in May 2012 in Australia (entered UK in Jan 2014 with intention of living here permanently)
- 2nd Tier 1 extension & Tier 1 PBS dependent visa – Feb 2014
- Switched to Tier 2 Visa & Tier 2 PBS dependent visa – Dec 2016
- 5 year settlement requirement completed in 1 Nov 2017.

Booked life in UK test for 13 Nov 2017 in Northampton. 15 minutes before test was supposed to start we were told that there were IT problems and our tests will be rescheduled. Within an hour we received calls from the centre staff and tests were rescheduled. My husband’s test was scheduled for 23 Nov and mine for 28 Nov. We told staff we would like to have both our tests on the same day and prefer an earlier date. They advised that the centre in Watford has availability for 17 Nov. We decided to reschedule the tests to Watford ourselves using the online booking system.

Following our tests, we tried to book PSC appointment. We looked at the following centres: Croydon, Birmingham, Liverpool and Sheffield. Earliest available appointment was 13 Dec and we have travel plans for 16 Dec so we did not book. The following day we found an appointment in Liverpool available for 2 Dec which we booked. We checked the booking everyday since booking to see if we could reschedule to an earlier date and on 21 Nov there was an appointment available at Sheffield for 22 Nov, which we rescheduled too.

We drove to the Sheffield PSC, which was very easy to find. There is a multi-story car park located on the same road. We went in at 11:00 for 11:30 appointment. And were called to reception at 11:15 to book in and hand over our documents. We were asked how old our photos were and I said 2 months (after so many visa applications I did not bother reading the photo guidance). We were told that the photos must be less than 28days old and we can take new photos using their photo booth. We didn’t have coins for the photo booth and were directed to a nearby Tesco so we could make change. We took new photos and handed them in.

We were called for biometrics while we were trying to sort out our new photos. Since we missed the biometrics when first called we had to wait to be called again. We were called next at 13:00. Following biometric submission, we were told we could leave the PSC and either come back in two hours or we will be called if we leave a mobile. While waiting to leave our mobile number the case officer came to pick up our application. We did mention to the case officer that we had additional documents to submit if the documents already submitted were not sufficient. He briefly looked at our documents and told us that the additional documents shouldn’t be necessary.

We went out and returned an hour and a half later and were told our application was approved a while ago. We never received a phone call but we spent our time in the Christmas market so we weren’t fussed about this.

Below is summary of our documents submitted:-

Proof of co-habitation:
- Marriage certificate
- 3 tenancy agreements (2014 to present)
- 3 proof of address from different sources over last two years; we made sure we did not leave more than a two month gap between documents and did not submit anything from an electronic source; the documents we submitted were made of bank statements, council tax notice, insurance policies, NHS letters, utility bills, random marketing letters received; if we didn’t have something in joint names we submitted two documents in each of our names.

Proof of finances:
- 3 x payslips
- 3 x bank statements – current account
- 3 x bank statements – Cash ISA
- 3 x bank statements – Spouse Cash ISA

Letters from my employer (I have been working for the same company since Dec 2016) :
- Letter confirming my employment and that my employment is still necessary
- Letter confirming absences from UK was pre-approved; I was out of UK for 284 days from Nov 2012 to present – none of these were work related absences; apart from 12 days last month all absences was paid leave
- Letter confirming authenticity of electronic payslips

English speaking requirement for myself (I used documents submitted with initial Tier1 visa):
- Degree certificate
- UK Naric letter of comparability for my degree dated 2008 (I think UK Naric letter dated after April 2016 needs to state the degree was taught in English)
- Letter from University confirming degree was taught in English dated 2007
My husband is from a designated English speaking country so he did not submit anything

To prove I met requirements while on Tier 1 visa:
- Payslips and P60 for the following tax years – 2014-2015, 2015-2016, 2016-2017
- Bank statements to show monies deposited into my account for the same period
- My cash ISA statements for the same period to show I have had sufficient maintenance funds
- Qualification - documents submitted as part of English speaking requirement
- I also submitted all remaining payslips for this year – I do not think was necessary

We made copies of all documents submitted and for the first time all copies were retained.

I hope this post will be useful for pending applications. Thank you to everyone on this forum - this forum has been a tremendous help for me.

Cheers

[shak47]

Congrats cherrypie, enjoy the freedom
Could you please let me know if you have submitted the absence letter to cover all your paid & unpaid personal holidays from Nov 2012 to 2017.

[cherrypie]

Hi Shak,

Yes, the letter covered every absence from Nov 1st, 2017 to present. I did have one trip after 1st Nov 2017 which is after the 5 year period and I included this. It also included dates when I went away to Europe for the weekends. If I left on a Saturday and came back on a Sunday, I said I was out of the country for 0 days but I included the exit and entry dates. All my absences were personal and taken as annual leave, time of in lieu or compassionate leave. My only unpaid leave was 12 days during a leave period of 41 days between August and October this year on compassionate grounds. I hope this helps.

[cherrypie]

Hi All,

Quick update, our BRPs were delivered on Saturday (Nov 25th), 3 days after our appointment.
Personally, I feel that the extra money spent on the PSC appointment was well worth it. I've always done postal applications before this and have found the waiting time very stressful.

Cheers