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Hello everyone,

Under the new rules and policy guidance for ILR, continous period is considered to be broken if the number of days are greater than 180 in any year. The new policy guidance for discretion for work related cases states:

"Absences in excess of 180 days in any 12 month period for employment or economic activity reasons are not considered exceptional."

Previously, it used to be:

"There have been longer absences abroad, provided the absences were for compelling grounds either of a compassionate nature or for reasons related to the applicant’s employment or business in the UK. No single absence abroad must be for more than three months at a time and any periods of long absence must not total more than six months. If the example is work related, evidence will need to be submitted to show that it would have serious implications for the employer or business if the travel had not been undertaken. Where continuous residence has been broken, periods may be aggregated or shortfalls disregarded only with the approval of a senior executive officer (SEO) or Grade 7."

My question:

I am a Construction Manager, hold a Tier-2 visa and have been working for same company for 5 years. I went on an international project assignment with the company and due to nature of the project, ended up staying for more than 180 days in my first year. What chances do I have now? So work related absences for more than 180 days in a year will not be considered serious anymore? Although people might not have a choice to say NO to such projects or assignments.

I am sure there'll be people in similar situation working for civil, construction, offshore oil and gas or any other global company that requires frequent travelling and it's a no brainer than mega construction projects cannot be completed within 180 days! Therefore, I would also like people to share their recent experience here if they applied in a similar situation and what was the outcome?

Thanks.

Seniors? Gurus? Anybody?

Please share your experience. Thanks.

where you paid in UK?

Ilr180 wrote: I went on an international project assignment with the company and due to nature of the project, ended up staying for more than 180 days in my first year.

how many days excess?

as your excess absence is in the first year, you may wish to delaay your ILR application so that the first year absence falls below the 180 days limit.

Thank you pkumar and ban.s for your replies.

Yes, I was being paid into my bank account in the UK.

Number of days out in first year: 285.

My query is particular to the new discretion statement of not considering work related absences as exceptional. In other words, aparently SEOs and case workers cannot exercise this NOW but previously they have been doing so as it was clearly written in the policy guidance. The question is how to contact UKBA or SEOs to reconsider this statement, especially for work permit/Tier 2 visa holders. Or is there any other way of dealing with this situation? This would depend on the advice I get here.