I am looking forward for your guidance on my query related to switch from Tier2 ICT dependent to Tier 4 main applicant.
I am in the UK on a Tier2 -ICT visa and will be finishing my 5years in Oct-2020, my wife (PBS -dependent) has just completed her bachelors from the UK university and she is looking forward to apply for a Msc now, she already has an offer from the UK university (HEI) for course stating 12-Oct-2020 which is before my current visa expiry date and CAS will be issued in July.
Q.1
I wanted to understand as per the below guidance from home office on temporary residents will she be allowed to apply for her Tier 4 (General) from within the UK in the month of July’20 or is this only for people whose expires before 31July?
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/coronavirus ... -residents
Even though our VISA expires in Oct-2020, I will not want to wait until last moment to apply for her Tier4, instead will want to get this done with in July or Aug max, offcourse if situation gets back to normal we will be happy to go back to the home country and apply from there as normal process but that looks extremely unclear at this point and I am not sure what will be best option for me. keep hoping the extension extends till 31-Oct or travel situation get back to normal or find a way to apply from UK

I want to point out in the current situation, that its not only people whose VISA expires before 31st July are in need for applying from within UK but also there are people who anyways needs to apply in this period irrespective of their current visa expiry date. I am hopeful home office will have thought about solution for those people as well and may be I am not able to interpret it.
Q.2
One additional question, for sake of getting clarity let say if she is allowed to apply for her Tier4 in Jul and if it gets approved, as her course start date is 12-Oct I trust her new Tier4 will have start date as one month before the course start date approximately around 12-Sep. As mentioned, this Visa will be applied in July will be approved in July and will have a start date of 12-Sep, in this case what will be here status for the month of Aug? For the gap period from approved date and start date will she still be able to hold on to her Tier 2 ICT PBS dependent status?