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Thank you all for your kind posts and replies earlier.

Got our ILR in Solihull on Friday. It was pretty straightforward, as my husband was with the same employer for the past 5 years.
He was out of the country for more than 250 days (on business visit), but nothing was asked about it, probably because he was with the same employer all these years. We had all employer letters supporting the absence, and also 5 years payslips + 5 P60s. None of these was asked though.

All that was asked was 12 months payslips + 12 months bank statements. Later I was asked as to why I as a dependant was out of the country for more than a year. (I came to UK in 2007, but I was away for 390 days till Oct 2011). When it was explained to her that it was because of maternity leave, the lady went inside, checked with someone for 10 mins, and came out smiling. She also took council tax letters and later said that ILR was approved for us, and we can collect our passports in two hours.

Surprisingly our biometric cards (Tier 1 extension) weren’t taken. My hubby later yesterday wrote to homeoffice if we should send it by post.

Congrats Roopa ...

A few more details about your application:
Was there any more than 90 days trips out of country ?
Did they ask for Co-Hab documents and what did you guys provide ?

sunil.suneel wrote:Congrats Roopa ...

A few more details about your application:
Was there any more than 90 days trips out of country ?
Did they ask for Co-Hab documents and what did you guys provide ?

Thank you.
Nope. There wasn't any 90 days trip. The max was 62 days trip to India and it was just 6 months before our ILR.

Cohab documents were asked, and when we provided an entire set of documents/mails, she picked only a couple of council tax letters and one P60 (mine).

Hi Roopa,

Congratulations to you and your husband.

Question: How did the caseworker know that, as a dependant you were out of the country for so many days. Did you provide this information to her or she found this information from her records.

tknayak wrote:Hi Roopa,

Congratulations to you and your husband.

Question: How did the caseworker know that, as a dependant you were out of the country for so many days. Did you provide this information to her or she found this information from her records.

Thank you. She got to know the info through her records.

Roopa Khanna wrote:
Thank you. She got to know the info through her records.

This vindicates one of my perceptions. When we go out of UK, there is no passport control or immigration at UK airports, although the passport details are entered at different places. So they do not put a check-out stamp in the passport, unlike in India. Some people used to argue that the HO only has got the record of our entry into the country and not the exit, I used to argue against that. From the experience of Roopa, it is clear that they must be having both check-in and check-out information, based on which they are able to know for how long you were out of UK.

Dear Roopa

Congratulations!

My wife is expecting a baby and is planning to go to india for delivery and will stay there for more than 90 days for sure.

Will this be a problem when we apply for ILR later this year? She will apply as my dependent.

Many Thanks
Shekhar

@tknayak -
as per UK Govt legislations, all airlines need to submit APIS Information on all international flights to and from the UK.
This "can" be used in conjunction with entry records to calculate absences.
There is also crude option of tracking thru entry stamp in overseas country. However in absence of exit stamp, there is no full proof way to determine the exit date. This was one of the key observations during recent debates on net migration.
Normally applicants get 'benefit of doubt' as long as the dates provided are in good faith and difference is a day (due to time difference).