Tier 2 (ICT) Visa expired Tuesday now without status

[Bella Cullen]

One of my employees is a US citizen and has a tier 2 visa. She came over 2 years ago on the back of her husbands work transfer so intra company transfer and she is his dependant.

The problem is, they were under the impression that their visa expired on April 19th and had booked an appointment with the immigration office for this coming Saturday (5th April) to go over their options and submit for a new visa to extend their stay (potentially renewing their current tier 2 visa, or switching to another type). This would have been fine if their visa did in fact expire on April 19th however, she's just discovered that it actually expired on April 1st.

I have said that she needs to cease working until the situation is resolved and she has confirmed this with the home office. The problem is is that we really need her to be in work for the next 3 days as we've got a lot on and she really doesn't want to go home and not be paid for the next 3 days at least (we've less concern about not paying her, we can work around this somehow i.e she can use annual leave or work over a weekend to make the time back or something).

My question is guess is: As her employer is there anything anyone can suggest we do to help or is there anyway round her stopping work? Will implied status commence when they've submitted their documentation on Saturday? Does implied status even exisit for this type of visa or even in this country? (I'm in the process of immigrating to Canada and it applies there; if you submit and extension or new visa request *prior* to the current one expiring)

I think if she's/we are shown to have tried to circumnavigate regulations this has implication for both parties in terms of a fine for our business and potentially an issue for the employee.

[manci]

The appointment your employee and her husband booked with the HO is presumably not for "going over the options" but to make two actual extension applications and submit supporting documents. This would be a premium service appointment at one of the Public Enquiry Offices and they should have a decision the same day.

As she is currently an overstayer she is not allowed to work and there is no way around this. You are right to be concerned about breaking the rules - don't.

The rules in the UK are similar to what you mentioned about Canada - existing leave continues if an extension application is submitted but only if this is done before the leave expires which is not the case here.