Post
by Cmoraschi » Sat Mar 17, 2018 4:42 pm
Hi everyone
Firstly, thank you to all those who contribute on this board, its been an absolute life saver in helping navigate the incredibly vague route of getting the visa!
Background: I am British born UK citizen, husband is Australian on Tier 5 YMS visa, and we applied under category A.
We decided early on to pony up the cash to get the (hopefully) same day decision at a premium centre. I really didn't anticipate how stressful I would find the application, not necessarily because it was *difficult* more because I found the whole process very frustrating and clear as mud and the possibility of doing something wrong and the consequences of that meant we were carrying round alot of anxiety. Could not bear the thought of waiting for months for a decision!
We arrived at the Croydon premium centre around 9.30am for the 9.50am appointment. Had a little joke about the ridiculous snow with the security guard while he checked the appointment confirmation. A quick whizz through an airport-style security scanner and then a walk to the third floor. (lifts were not working which seems to be most peoples report, be mindful and maybe call ahead if you have any disability/access concerns).
A very friendly receptionist told us we were very early' for our appointment (15 mins is very early apparently!) and to take a seat while they checked in people who had 9.40 appointments. At 9.50 she checked through our paperwork quickly before giving us a number and a sheet of instruction on how the day would run. By 10am we had been called back from the waiting room to have our details put on the system and our paperwork collected.
IMPORTANT! I did and redid my paperwork several times, at first in a ring-bound folder with separators and contents pages until I read on here how they really don't need you do to that. We had stuck a few sticky tabs on bank statements to show payments and used clips to separate the relevant sections eg finance, accommodation etc. she absolutely did not give a hoot. she made us take it all off and just have one whole pile of papers and then another pile for photocopies we had done. That was it. The whole thing took 10, 15 minutes tops while she just input details into the system.Save yourself the time. Have it all in order, but thats it!
We then waited a few minutes for the biometrics, which was all over and done with that by 10.20 we were back in the main waiting room.
You watch your number move on the screen - we were in biometric checks for around 20 minutes and then 30 minutes 'waiting for consideration."
The chairs are ok, but its obviously v.boring. no tv screens, the 'cafe' was closed so we made do with the vending machine crisps and a bottle of water. There were plug sockets by the window.
At 11.10 we could see a caseworker had finally picked up our pack and we were under consideration. I was filled with dread and fear that somehow, we had managed to do something wrong. It got pretty noisy around this time too, lots of small children making noise as they often do. Would not advise wearing headphones as in addition to the auto message calling different numbers to desks, every now and then a member of staff would call a run of numbers to a desk which we assumed were those who had been successful.
by 1pm I noticed our number had disappeared off the board. I have my husband the elbow and asked him to go check with reception, dreading IT issues which many people report. He was gone for almost ten minutes while my brain jumped to the conclusion we had been declined and they were explaining why. But he appeared, clutching his approval letter and explaining that our caseworker had approved the case, but then went to lunch and FORGOT TO PASS OUR FILE ON. this had apparently happened an hour ago! Which meant that our visa was approved by the caseworker in an hour! I would have been furious about being made to wait an additional hour needlessly but was just SO happy!
This is the list of what we submitted\l
Confirmation of booking
Confirmation of IHS payment
Checklist document ( was emailed to us in our appointment reminder a few days before)
Application form (we printed one from online, as did not like the online application)
Sponsor letter of support
Passports
Current biometric
Passport photos with names written on the back
Finance
Natwest absolutely gave me the run around and never ended up posting me my statements and told me they also couldn't verify them. Luckily I went to a large branch and cried and they instead printed me out a 6 month transaction list and stamped to verify them. Lesson learned: Always go and ask in person.
6 payslips - printed online so letter from finance manager in company confirming payslips were authentic. Also asked her to confirm the amounts and payslip numbers in the letter.
Letter from HR confirming my name, job title, date work commenced, contract type, salary, address.
Copy of my original job contract
Proof of marriage
Wedding certificate
1 x photo scan of us on wedding day
Accomodation
1 x tenancy renewal from November adding my husband as the permiited occupier
1 x property inspection report from May 2016 which I got when I first moved in
Extras
Joint bank account statement
Boarding passes/ flight confirmations from holidays weve taken since weve been together
Some social media screen shots of various check ins together
Email from husbands dad confirming flights booked for trip
And that was it! When I write it down, it really doesnt feel like alot....! I kept a folder of 'maybe' stuff on me that I didnt submit just in case they wanted it eg original tenancy agreement, p60 etc.
Hopefully this helps. We were a pretty straightforward case compared to others but just know that MOST people find it confusing and stressful and to just give yourself PLENTY of time to get organised!
