**** COVID19 and UKVCAS Appointments **** (ONLY discuss here)

[drengshehata]

May be NHS worker or health carer as they have the previlige to get things quicker.

[stargal87]

May be NHS worker or health carer as they have the previlige to get things quicker.

I think SET (O) applications might just be more straight forward i.e. less judgements to make than other routes - best of luck!

[drengshehata]

Congrats for this. You are also a VIP since you are working in the finance industry . Best wishes for the next step.

[Ameline]

On a separate note, a SET(O) got approved in 5 working days, just saw on the timeline thread, application made 12th October, approval 19th October. There's definitely new staff working at UKVI who probably are efficient in the way they are working. Congratulations to that applicant.

I think SET(O) and Tier 2 Visa extension or switch have some sort of privilege upon other categories as they contribute directly to the economy based on their status. The irony is that we, SET(M) and other categories, contribute to the economy as well. We are tax payers and occupy key positions which might be even higher than Tier 2 roles. With all respect to everyone and all roles and even housewives and househusbands but this is the truth. We just feel marginalised and helpless as we cannot do anything. We are entirely in the HO hands and under their mercy.

debrancherenzym you have all my solidarity and best wishes to hear from them very shortly.

[debrancherenzym]

On a separate note, a SET(O) got approved in 5 working days, just saw on the timeline thread, application made 12th October, approval 19th October. There's definitely new staff working at UKVI who probably are efficient in the way they are working. Congratulations to that applicant.

I think SET(O) and Tier 2 Visa extension or switch have some sort of privilege upon other categories as they contribute directly to the economy based on their status. The irony is that we, SET(M) and other categories, contribute to the economy as well. We are tax payers and occupy key positions which might be even higher than Tier 2 roles. With all respect to everyone and all roles and even housewives and househusbands but this is the truth. We just feel marginalised and helpless as we cannot do anything. We are entirely in the HO hands and under their mercy.

debrancherenzym you have all my solidarity and best wishes to hear from them very shortly.

Thanks Ameline, I hope so too

[ukresident001]

Hi,
Any one able to check the earliest appointment available in London ukvcas centres?
Thanks

[Mjais85]

Dear All,

Could anyone please check for the earliest free (if any) and paid appointment in croydon both centres?

[mesn]

Dear All,

Could anyone please check for the earliest free (if any) and paid appointment in croydon both centres?

16Nov at both centres including some free ones.

[CULLINAN]

Suggestion: Since mostly all the appointments are in 3/4 weeks time, the best approach is to consider “self-submission” of documents to UKVI via UKVCAS before biometrics and save time.

[Mjais85]

Dear All,

Could anyone please check for the earliest free (if any) and paid appointment in croydon both centres?

16Nov at both centres including some free ones.

Thank you @navkant much appreciated

[Mjais85]

Suggestion: Since mostly all the appointments are in 3/4 weeks time, the best approach is to consider “self-submission” of documents to UKVI via UKVCAS before biometrics and save time.

Absolutely!! Best to let them have something via UKVCAS rather than nothing until the Appointment.

[gn0me]

Total 5 years in the country. 2015-2017 on Tier 2, since then on Tier 1 ET

Hi Everyone,

I have a Tier 1 Exceptional talent visa and previously had a Tier 2 General. In total I've been in the UK for over a 5 years already. I've applied for ILR and have an appointment in Croydon on 2nd of November. I've uploaded all documents online, but a lot of these documents I have only in PDFs, like bank statements, payslips, etc. Should I still print them and bring on my appointment or it is enough that I've uploaded them? Thanks for clarification.

Andrei

May be worth taking it just in case. Just for clarification, where you in the tier 2 for 5 years or tier 1 is included in your 5 years?

[CULLINAN]

I've uploaded all documents online, but a lot of these documents I have only in PDFs, like bank statements, payslips, etc. Should I still print them and bring on my appointment or it is enough that I've uploaded them?

No need to print soft copies and no need to carry them.

[mesn]

Hi,
Any one able to check the earliest appointment available in London ukvcas centres?
Thanks

16Nov at Croydon and few other places.A week prior appointments are available in Birmingham and up North if you can travel.

[omarmansour]

Hi,

Has anyone applying for a standard Tier 2 extension got a UKVI delay notice? My wife and my son have applied for Tier 2 extension/switch on 28th August, IDV app biometrics submitted a week later, but a few days ago we get the UKVI delay notice.

It seems all the posts here are on delay notices on ILR??

Thanks !

[CULLINAN]

Hi,

Has anyone applying for a standard Tier 2 extension got a UKVI delay notice? My wife and my son have applied for Tier 2 extension/switch on 28th August, IDV app biometrics submitted a week later, but a few days ago we get the UKVI delay notice.

It seems all the posts here are on delay notices on ILR??

Thanks !

Ignore that. No relevance with the decision pace. Generic.

[JT67ILRqns]

ILR SET M questions

We registered / paid with UKVCAS in the second week of September 2020.

We then received the invitation to use the IDV app on 17 September and submitted via the IDV app on 18 September.

My current visa expires in less than 3 weeks.

We have received no confirmation that UKVI have received or are looking at my application.

We are relying 100% on the following statement made by UKVI / UKVCAS :

- UKVI have told us that they aim to deal with ALL applications in date order. This means that your case will be dealt with by UKVI based on the date of your registration with UKVI/UKVCAS.


1. IF UKVI are dealing with applications in date order, do you have any reliable data for the ILR SET M route, roughly which week / month they are currently dealing with ? This would really help in managing our expectations of when we might hear something.

2. We noted previously that there was an email address that you could write to asking for an update “ UKVISETM@homeoffice.gov.uk “. Is it appropriate to write to them after 6 weeks, asking for an update ? We do not want to waste their time or appear ‘needy’, if for example, they are still working on applications from May or June and we should NOT expect to hear anything for weeks or even months.

3. Based on what you are seeing for ILR SET M, realistically given that we registered with UKVI / UKVCAS in the second week of September, when do you think it would be reasonable to expect to hear something ?

4. As well as “dealing with applications in date order”, are you aware if UKVI in parallel, are trying to reach decisions to prevent visas from expiring eg in the next three weeks in our case ?

[CULLINAN]

Your visa expiry is irrelevant. You are covered by Section 3C once you apply in-time. Writing to UKVI at this stage is not advisable. You should wait patiently.

[drengshehata]

Does anyone know an email for HO to enquire about the status of SET 0 please?

[JT67ILRqns]

Thank you very much for your swift response.

We will hold off writing to UKVI.

Based on what you are seeing, do you have any idea what sort of timescales we might be looking at for ILR SET M ?

[CULLINAN]

Thank you very much for your swift response.

We will hold off writing to UKVI.

Based on what you are seeing, do you have any idea what sort of timescales we might be looking at for ILR SET M ?

@Ameline and @Ajitu92 are best placed to answer this.

[ajitu92]

Thank you very much for your swift response.

We will hold off writing to UKVI.

Based on what you are seeing, do you have any idea what sort of timescales we might be looking at for ILR SET M ?

@Ameline and @Ajitu92 are best placed to answer this.

Apologies, I'm not tracking Set M applications, only Set LR. Will wait for @Ameline to chip in here.

[Ameline]

Thank you very much for your swift response.

We will hold off writing to UKVI.

Based on what you are seeing, do you have any idea what sort of timescales we might be looking at for ILR SET M ?

@Ameline and @Ajitu92 are best placed to answer this.

I have a whole dataset from this forum since the start of lockdown (End of March) and I was trying to predict based on how the HO previously dealt with applications.

If we take March, April and May applications:

- First approved March SET(M) (appointment before lockdown in March) reported receiving approval in this forum was on 14/05/2020 (I guess there might be many before this but was not reported in this forum).
- First approved March SET(M) (appointment after lockdown in June) reported receiving approval in this forum was on 15/06/2020.
- First approved April SET(M) reported receiving approval in this forum was on 30/07/2020.
- First approved May SET(M) reported receiving approval in this forum was on 04/09/2020.


If we take June, July and Aug applications as examples which is more relevant to us, we (September SET(M) applicants) would have started receiving decision before October ends:

- First approved June SET(M) reported receiving approval in this forum was on 23/07/2020.
- First approved July SET(M) reported receiving approval in this forum was on 14/08/2020.
- First approved August SET(M) reported receiving approval in this forum was on 10/09/2020.

We have not seen any approval for September SET(M) yet. Based on June/July/August this would have started before 10/10/2020 but it did not happen. I applied myself on 04/09/2020. Obviously if they don't start reviewing September SET(M) before the end of October, we will be among the unlucky months, same as late march, April and May. If they start this week or next week, we will be similar to June, July and August.

Also when I say June, July and August are lucky with August being the luckiest, there are unlucky people inside these lucky months and vice versa lol

There are still outstanding applications from March to August, so overall; there are people who have been lucky in the monthly good luck, unlucky in the monthly good luck, lucky in the monthly bad luck and (bless them) unlucky in the monthly bad luck.

Hope this makes sense and helps.

[sean2606]

Thank you very much for your swift response.

We will hold off writing to UKVI.

Based on what you are seeing, do you have any idea what sort of timescales we might be looking at for ILR SET M ?

@Ameline and @Ajitu92 are best placed to answer this.

I have a whole dataset from this forum since the start of lockdown (End of March) and I was trying to predict based on how the HO previously dealt with applications.

If we take March, April and May applications:

- First approved March SET(M) (appointment before lockdown in March) reported receiving approval in this forum was on 14/05/2020 (I guess there might be many before this but was not reported in this forum).
- First approved March SET(M) (appointment after lockdown in June) reported receiving approval in this forum was on 15/06/2020.
- First approved April SET(M) reported receiving approval in this forum was on 30/07/2020.
- First approved May SET(M) reported receiving approval in this forum was on 04/09/2020.


If we take June, July and Aug applications as examples which is more relevant to us, we (September SET(M) applicants) would have started receiving decision before October ends:

- First approved June SET(M) reported receiving approval in this forum was on 23/07/2020.
- First approved July SET(M) reported receiving approval in this forum was on 14/08/2020.
- First approved August SET(M) reported receiving approval in this forum was on 10/09/2020.

We have not seen any approval for September SET(M) yet. Based on June/July/August this would have started before 10/10/2020 but it did not happen. I applied myself on 04/09/2020. Obviously if they don't start reviewing September SET(M) before the end of October, we will be among the unlucky months, same as late march, April and May. If they start this week or next week, we will be similar to June, July and August.

Also when I say June, July and August are lucky with August being the luckiest, there are unlucky people inside these lucky months and vice versa lol

There are still outstanding applications from March to August, so overall; there are people who have been lucky in the monthly good luck, unlucky in the monthly good luck, lucky in the monthly bad luck and (bless them) unlucky in the monthly bad luck.

Hope this makes sense and helps.

Great stats @Ameline.

We are one of the unlucky ones, having applied for my wife's SET(M) on 19/08/20, app on 07/09 and in person biometrics on 22/09/20 and still no response.

Good to know that alot of SET(O) have received quick responses, does anyone know how/why when compared to SET(M).

[stonelove]

ILR SET M questions

We registered / paid with UKVCAS in the second week of September 2020.

We then received the invitation to use the IDV app on 17 September and submitted via the IDV app on 18 September.

My current visa expires in less than 3 weeks.

We have received no confirmation that UKVI have received or are looking at my application.

We are relying 100% on the following statement made by UKVI / UKVCAS :

- UKVI have told us that they aim to deal with ALL applications in date order. This means that your case will be dealt with by UKVI based on the date of your registration with UKVI/UKVCAS.


1. IF UKVI are dealing with applications in date order, do you have any reliable data for the ILR SET M route, roughly which week / month they are currently dealing with ? This would really help in managing our expectations of when we might hear something.

2. We noted previously that there was an email address that you could write to asking for an update “ UKVISETM@homeoffice.gov.uk “. Is it appropriate to write to them after 6 weeks, asking for an update ? We do not want to waste their time or appear ‘needy’, if for example, they are still working on applications from May or June and we should NOT expect to hear anything for weeks or even months.

3. Based on what you are seeing for ILR SET M, realistically given that we registered with UKVI / UKVCAS in the second week of September, when do you think it would be reasonable to expect to hear something ?

4. As well as “dealing with applications in date order”, are you aware if UKVI in parallel, are trying to reach decisions to prevent visas from expiring eg in the next three weeks in our case ?

No do worry as long as it not gone past six months there is no point in writing to them, there some who have been waiting since April for reference I am a May applicant SET (M) and I have not had anything form UKVI so we all got to hold tight.