ILR Success with > 180 absence & Traffic Conviction &

I successfully received ILR at Croydon PEO recently
[u]My Case:[/u]
Work Permit (2.5 years) + Tier 1 General (3 years)
1 Main Applicant + 2 dependents.
[u]Employment:[/u] Employed with same company for 5 years. No employment breaks.
[u]Absences from UK:[/u] 286 days in total (consisting of 156 days of work related travel and 130 days of personal travel). No travel of more than 100 days (business+personal) in any of the 5 preceding calendar years. Also no trip of more than 90 days.
[u]Court Fine:[/u] Received fine and 6 penalty points from Magistrate Court in Jan 2009 for Traffic violation (driving on foreign licence beyond permissible 1 year period). Sentence included fine for driving without insurance (although I had insurance, court deemed it invalid due to licence being invalid). I carried out an extended Criminal Records Check and also a check against Police National Computer (PNC) by submitting SAR request with ACRO. Both Criminal Records Certificate and ACRO report came out clear (i.e. not showing any recorded conviction against my name).

Booked PEO appointment for 08.00 AM slot at Croydon.

[u]Experience at Croydon:[/u]
Reached PEO Croydon with wife and baby @ 7:45 AM. Got immediate entry. Finished Security check and all initial processing in 45 mins (i.e. Application checking+Payment+Biometrics) on 1st floor.

Thereafter was asked to proceed to 2nd floor to wait to be called by Case Worker. Case worker called within 15 min and asked to provide original documents and photocopies. We were asked to wait after finishing his checking and entering details on his system. Within 30 mins I was called and told my application had been approved and BRP will be sent within next 7 working days.

Overall experience was excellent. Staff at every point (from Security Guard at entrance until Case Worker) were polite and spoke with a smile. We had a baby stroller with us, so they helped us around the building (like when we had to use elevators etc).

Case Worker asked for the following documents:
1.SET (O)+ 2 Photos for each applicant with Name on back
2.Passports (both current and any old passports containing previous UK visas)
3.Biometric Cards
4. 12 original Payslips
5. 12 Original Bank Statements matching to the payslips
6. Original Life in UK Test result for me and wife
7. Recent Reference Letter from Employer
8. Original P60 for last 5 years.
9. Letter from Employer listing my business travel dates and also confirming my paid holidays (I was not specifically asked for this, but I submitted this anyway. The case worker did however ask me to sum up the absences by each calendar year on the SET O form itself in Section 6. Given that none of the yearly absence totalled more than 100 days, no further questions were asked).
10. Cohabitation Evidence - I was asked to show any 3 documents from 3 different sources during last 2 years on my and my wife's name respectively. Accordingly I gave 1 council tax statement, 1 payslip each for me and wife and one bank statement.
11. Court Fine: I specifically asked to submit the clean CRB certificate and the clean PNC report as evidence, but case worker said they did not need it.

All originals had to be accompanied by a photo copy as well.

I had carried some other documents with me as well,but was not asked for the same. These included;
1. Original Work Permit and Work Permit Extension documents.
2. Previous Tier 1 General approval letters from Home Office.
3. Original Criminal Records Bureau certificate
4. SAR report from ACRO.
5. Multiple bills/documents over last 2 years to show co-habitation.
6. Marriage Certificate
7. Degree certificate from University
8. Birth Certificates.

I hope my experience will be useful reference for ILR applicants with long absences from UK (but falling within the new stipulated limit of 180 days/calendar year) and with past court fines (not within the last 24 months as per new immigration rules published on 13th Dec 2012).

Thank you very much. Congratulations!

Did you tick the box that you had criminal conviction in the application form?

Yes. Mentioned all details about the conviction in section 7. Had mentioned it in my previous tier1 general visa applications as well.

Wow. Lucky you. Congrats

Congrats. Wonder how your ACRO report and other CRB checks came out clean if you had this conviction?

Because it does not lead to criminal record. Research UK legal system.

Fixed Point Penalty, unless dealt by the court, is not a conviction but an offence.

Congratulations and Thanks for sharing your experience.

Why did you declare it and got all these checks if it's only a fixed penalty notice,not dealt by court, not within 24 months from the date of application and the SET(O) form 7.2 doesn't ask you to give details of FPN!?

How you got an appointment with 2 dependents as I can see slots for single applicant only! and did you select Croydon?

Please advise

timatid, please advise!