ILR Success! Croydon PEO Office - Calculating Absences

Telemachus wrote:But the email I received back from the UKBA advised me - unexpectedly - that BOTH days leaving and days returning to the UK would be counted as absences. So I made do with my own filenotes from UKBA phone helplines and hoped would not be raised as an issue.

Telemachus wrote:Hello all.

I've been a quiet lurker on this forum for years now, and have benefited significantly from information people have shared of their own experiences with Tier 1 and ILR applications - so thought I should share with you my own successful experiences at the Croydon office last week.

I applied for ILR for myself and my partner, and applied under the HSMP Judicial Review policy - having been granted an HSMP visa in June 2006. The terms of that policy required that my ILR application be assessed under the rules in place for ILR settlement in 2006 - so no need for me to complete Point Scoring sections of the revised ILR application process, and no need for me or my partner to complete a Life In The UK Test. I did however have to complete a full five years of residence in the UK.



This should have resulted in a very simple application - but over the years I'd tallied up a large number of absences from the UK, and the majority of them holiday and not work absences. Counting whole days absent from the UK (and excluding days of travel) I'd clocked up 163 days, which is well within the limit of 180 days. But despite the assurances on some parts of this forum, I'd heard that UKBA caseworkers had on occasion counted travel days as days absent - which would have put me over the limit.

I called the UKBA's Helpline twice to get clarification on this - and had been assured both times that days of travel were to be excluded. I wanted the assurance in email form, so I could print it and produce it at my PEO appointment if I was unlucky enough to land a caseworker who had a different interpretation. But the email I received back from the UKBA advised me - unexpectedly - that BOTH days leaving and days returning to the UK would be counted as absences. So I made do with my own filenotes from UKBA phone helplines and hoped would not be raised as an issue.

On this point - the calculation should logically be whole days absent, excluding travel days - this is the method of calculation used for Naturalisation and stated very unambiguously in the Naturalisation Guidance Booklet, and is also the method of calculation used by HMRC for determining tax residence. But it had become very clear to me that the UKBA does not have a consistent approach on this issue - it's wholly down to the discretion of individual caseworkers. The best I could gather on this issue is that the discretion is likely to swing in favour of an approval if absences are clearly within annual leave limits - so I had my employer prepare a letter to confirm that all holidays taken since I'd commenced work with them in 2006 had been consistent with my annual leave entitlement.

I was also missing a number of entry and exit stamps in my passport - and while I was confident I'd recorded the dates correctly (I've kept a Travel Log diligently over last five years) for those particular dates the best I'd been able to find to substantiate my own Travel Log dates was E-Tickets, and for a couple of dates only an email confirmation of hotel bookings.

Anyway, despite my concerns about this potential issue the application was successful and no issues were raised about my method of calculating absences.

Here's a blow-by-blow account:

Appointment was booked for 9am in the morning. (I highly recommend a start of day appointment rather than an afternoon one - by the time I left at midday the waiting hall at Croydon was full to the hilt and looked to be a very long queue of applicants waiting to be seen.)

We cleared security - and were surprised that we were allowed to keep our bags. (We'd been to the Cardiff office when renewing out Tier 1 visas, and all possessions had to be left a reception, which made for a dreary and foot-tapping period of waiting).

Our first UKBA Clerk checked through my form and queried a couple of points, then gave us a ticket stub. We paid upstairs - momentary twinge of anxiety as I punched in my pin for the £2025 debit underneath the "no refund" sign.

We took our seats in the very vast and very bleak waiting area, in plastic bucket seats facing a long row of glass counters and waiting for the curtains to be rolled up as caseworkers arrived for their first appointments. (I was surprised by the lack of privacy here - all caseworker/applicant conversations are completely audible to everyone else. I'd been expecting cubicles or something a little more discreet.)

We were called up at 9.30 - half an hour after our appointment time. Our caseworker was lovely, which was a relief. She asked for my SET(O) form, passports and photos. I'd prepared a covering letter setting out all my HMSP and Tier 1 visa dates and listing all documents I'd brought with me for reference, but she put it to the side without even glancing at it.

She asked me for the following documents:

- Ticket number and payment receipt
- Employer Letter
- Last 3 month payslips

I had a gigantic pile of additional supporting documents - P60s/45s, 5 years worth of payslips and bank statements, employer's ref for work absences, proof of co-habitation for my partner and me - and I did offer these up, but she told us they were not needed.

After 15 minutes of reviewing documents, she began checking through my passport pages and entering dates into her computer screen. I interrupted to offer her a separate travel log I'd prepared with details of each passport stamp and E-tickets print outs, but she told us they were not necessary.

After another 10 minutes she asked us to move back to the waiting area. She waved us back to her desk 15 minutes later to ask for bank statements from the last 3 months, which I handed over. I also offered photocopies of documents I'd prepared, and she took them.

After another half an hour of waiting she called us back and told us that the application was approved. She said, which I thought was odd, that it was approved "on the basis of your work", but it hardly mattered - I was gushing thankyous and beaming relief.

She told us that our passports would be stamped with a visa and we should collect them from the customer service desk in an hour. We left the building and grabbed a coffee while we waited - then returned and collected them within five minutes.

All in all - the PEO process at Croydon was very simple, quite fast and quite cheerful (owing to the good nature of our caseworker). I'd recommend it over a postal application, if you can afford the increase in fees.

Thanks to all for their posts here over the years - Tier 1 and ILR, which have all been very useful.

Best of luck with your own applications!