Immigrationboards.com

Hi,
(1) I came to UK in December 2009 as student.
(2) When I applied for an extension, by mistake I did not answer one question in the application form and the application returned as invalid.
(3) I immediately applied again and my visa was refused as I was told that I did not had the valid visa at the time of application so I need full maintenance funds to claim maintenance points.
I came to know about visa refusal after 10 months of refusal when I received letter from Capita. I got visa in result of the appeal. In the court it was proved that home office never posted the refusal letter to me.
(4) I applied for Tier 2 visa, but did not received any reply for 30 months. Meanwhile the sponsor Tier 2 licence is gone and my application was refused. I made an appeal, the judge allowed my appeal on the basis of human rights.
(5) Now I have completed 10 years in UK. I never been outside UK since December 2009.
(6) I had valid visa for almost 5 years in total, in the last 10 years, and rest of the 5 years, I have spent in either waiting for home office decisions or making appeals. But all of my appeals have been successful.

Is my visa continuity has broken at any stage? Can I apply ILR the bases of long residence?

You do not have 10 years of lawful residence as your application was returned as invalid. This means you had no valid leave between your visa expiry date and the day you were granted visa again. Even if we assume HO served you the refusal correctly, you still had no section 3C and your overstaying period remains the same. Your appeal is not therefore relevant here

Thanks for your response. In the appeal decision, the court found that I had valid leave at the time of fresh application as it was a continuation of the original application (which was returned invalid).
The appeal was allowed under the immigration rules and cost was awarded to me.

Does the decision wordings help me?

There is no such a thing as continuation of an invalid application.