I got ILR today at Croydon. As promised I would like to share my experience at the PEO.
This is the first time I visited a PEO. All my previous applications were postal applications; I did not want to wait over 14 weeks to know the fate of my ILR application and hence decided to go in-person.
My case background: 10 months on WP, 2 years on HSMP, rest of the term as Tier1 (General). I am now self-employed and own a limited company. I applied for my wife and son along with me, but went alone carrying their passports.
I went inside at 12 noon and collected my passports at 3.30pm.
1. The case worker asked me to provide the application form and then immediately asked me if I was on WP initially. Then she asked me to provide all five years P60s, unfortunately I did not have the first year P60.
2. I have explained my case to her, and she was happy with a letter from then employer that I was on deputation in the UK.
3. Then she took copies of – Last 3 months’ personal bank stmts, 3 months’ business bank stmts, reference letter from my accountant for my limited company, my latest contract, 3 months’ payslips, Life in the UK letters, three P60s. Remember that the case workers are not asking for photocopies, but if you have them, let the case worker know, so it makes their job easy.
4. She was neither interested in WP/HSMP/Tier1 approval letters from UKBA, nor interested in utility bills.
5. She asked me to indicate the total number of absences from the UK in the application form, luckily I had a separate sheet with no. of days away from the UK, along with appropriate immigration stamp pages numbers for those days away from UK. I think she did not verify absences against my passport stamps, but I noticed other case workers verifying absences against passport stamps (So it may be worth using the template available in the forum for this purpose).
6. She did not ask any questions on my HSMP duration, but was keen on my Tier1 duration. She did ask several questions on this matter – whether I pay a salary myself, what were the three company names in the contract agreement (The client, my ltd company, and recruitment agency), whether I work from home etc. Finally she asked me to collect the passport an hour later, but before the counter closes at 3.55PM; I breathed a sigh of relief.
Overall she was very cordial and dispelled all my apprehensions going to PEO in-person. By the way I scored 24 out 24 in Life in the UK test! She did not tell the score, so I had to explicitly ask for it!
Once again many thanks to all on the forum, many of your experiences and inputs helped me better prepare for my ILR application.
Raghu
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