Student visa about to run out… options?

Hi everyone,

I'm posting on behalf of a friend whose student visa is about to run out.

Alan is a dependent of his brother (who is working in the UK), but doesn't yet have a joint bank account to prove this for the application. A joint account is in the process of being set up, but won't have been completed by the time his current visa expires, and so his application instead includes evidence of his brother's finances along with a cover letter.

The complication is that he has already started a year of study at a UK university, but due to the joint account problem (which he wasn't aware of as being a stumbling block) it looks as though his student visa extension will be rejected. In this case, Alan will have to leave the country shortly, because he will have no more leave to remain in the UK.

So my question is simple, though an answer might be complicated: what can he do now?

Should he just go home to Hong Kong, re-apply, and miss any schooling in between? Can he leave the UK and return (immediately) as a temporary visitor while the joint account / extension is sorted out? Is there another option for extending the visa while the currently application is fixed?

Any advice would be much appreciated!

If the issue is maintenance funds,

Evidence of money that is available to you - acceptable documents wrote:The following documents, with the exception of the loan letter, must cover a consecutive 28-day period ending no more than a month before the date of your application.

Evidence of your money wrote:Letter from a financial institution confirming a loan

The financial institution must be regulated by the Financial Services Authority or, in the case of overseas accounts, the home regulator. (This is the official regulator for the country where the institution is and where the money is held.)

The loan letter must be dated no more than six months before the date of your application, and must show:

* your name;
* the date of the letter;
* the financial institution's name and logo; and
* the money (or funds) available as a loan.

Loans held in the name(s) of your parents(s) or legal guardian cannot be used as evidence of money held by you.

There must be no conditions on the release of the loan funds to you, other than your making a successful Tier 4 application.

If you are applying from overseas, the loan funds must be available to you before you travel to the UK, unless the loan:

*is an academic/student loan from your country's national government; and
*will be released to you by your national government or your Tier 4 education provider when you arrive in the UK.

regards

If Alan applies for a student extension before his current leave runs out then, even though it is doomed to fail because the funds are in his brother's name, he won't have to leave until any appeal is concluded. It seems to me that an appeal is similarly doomed to fail, but that doesn't stop him exercising his rights and he can hope that the Tribunal Service takes its time to handle his case.

Note that he won't be able to travel anywhere outside the Common Travel Area while the appeal is in progress (no trips to Paris for sightseeing!), and will have a refusal endorsement in his passport. He wouldn't normally have to worry about a future UK visa ban just because of the refusal, provided that he leaves within 28 days of finally losing his appeal, but some other countries won't like the fact that he had been refused leave by the UK.

If Alan's current leave doesn't allow him to work now then he won't be allowed to work while his appeal is in progress either.

Thanks for the advice.

The appeals route is probably too risky and sounds like a last resort really. I guess the crux of the problem is that Alan cannot get his full application ready until some time after his current visa expires (he is waiting on his CAS number and his joint account statement).

Should he just go back to Hong Kong, re-apply once that evidence comes through, and then come back to the UK (having missed the length of time that takes from the course he has already started)?

Is it possible to go home and then return on a tourist visa to bridge the gap, while it is all sorted out?

Is there some other route I might be missing?

Thanks in advance...