Overstayed b/c of HO error – will ILR 10-yr be rejected?

I entered the UK in Sept 2007 on a Tier 4 (general) student visa. Five successful visa applications later under various routes, I am now looking to apply for ILR based on 10-year Long Residence.

The only potential issue with my application as far as I can see is that in 2009 I inadvertently overstayed my Student leave because the Home Office had – in error – issued me with a student visa for 1 year + 3 months, instead of for 3 years + 3 months, to cover the duration of my course. I didn't realise the mistake until a few weeks before the expiry date, by which time I was in the middle of Lent Term.

I phoned the Home Office before the visa expired and they advised I should leave at the end of term (flights already booked) to apply for a new student visa. I returned to the US the day after the end of term (50 days after my visa expiry), and applied for a new student visa via Chicago fast track service. That application included an explanation of the Home Office's administrative error and a new student visa was issued a few days later.

The rest of my immigration history is unblemished, and I meet all other requirements. Any advice on how to handle this period of technical overstaying on my ILR application? Do I just need a good solicitor to write a strong covering letter? Should I get an SAR report to confirm whether the Home Office had registered me as an overstayer? Or not bother because I'll be rejected immediately?

Any thoughts/recommendations/anecdotes appreciated!

Do you have anything in writing from HO that they advised you to leave at the end of term? AFAIK, they will not take any responsibility for any advise given over the phone. The correct course of action should have been that you contacted them in writing & sent your passport back to get the error corrected well before your visa expiry. Anything over 28 days overstay, you are in trouble.

Thanks for the response. No, sadly I don't have anything in writing. Is this the sort of thing that an SAR would help clear up? I'm curious if the Home Office ever considered me an overstayer at all, or if they just extended my initial leave. Might there be case notes from that subsequent application, or do the SARs not go into that level of detail?

Of course I know now that I should have written to the HO to have it fixed, but as a naive student I wasn't much concerned about the 'overstayer' label as long as I wasn't going to be deported before the end of term. I had planned to leave the UK after the end of my degree, so the fact that it might eventually affect an ILR application was the furthest thing from my mind.

The problem is HO most certainly will not own up to their mistake without you having to seek legal action should they refuse your ILR. Go for SAR (the one which costs £10) and see what it says.