ILR SET(M) success at Cardiff PEO

[GrahamD85]

Hi everyone,

First of all, thanks to everyone here who has provided guidance over the last few years, your help has been greatly appreciated.

Myself (British born citizen) and my fiancée (American) had our PEO appointment this morning. We live in Manchester, so it was a bit of a trek but it was the appointment we got and we were so sick of the booking system we went with it.

We stayed over the night before at the Ibis budget (a bargainous £25 for a room) which was a ten minute taxi ride to the PEO on Newport Road. Our appointment was for 8.30am, so we arrived at 8am when they opened the doors. We've only ever been to Liverpool PEO and in comparison Cardiff is tiny, but that also made it feel very friendly. The whole PEO is open plan and pretty much in one room.

SECURITY

We showed the guy our booking number, emptied our pockets into the tray and went through. The security guys were very friendly and we all shared a laugh at the amount of rubbish I unknowingly had in my jeans.

WAITING AREA

We were sat for maybe 10-15 minutes before being called to a window. Our Immigration Officer was also friendly and very clear when explaining the process. We gave him all of our documents and our application form before being told to go and sit down again.

BIOMETRICS

After 5-10 minutes of waiting we were called through to the biometrics area by our IO. This took 5 minutes and we were then told, because it's a small PEO and waiting area, that we could leave and have a walk round Cardiff while we were waiting for them to go through our application. The IO even gave us a map with directions and circled some things for us to visit. This was around 8:40am and we were told to come back after 11am as this is when we'd have a decision

WALKING AROUND CARDIFF

Well, not quite. We strolled down the road and into the city centre (a 6-7 minute walk) and grabbed a coffee nearby. While we were sat drinking our coffee at around 9:20am, my fiancées phone rang. It was someone from the PEO and they told her she needed to come back to the PEO as soon as possible. We were panicking as we walked back, wondering what we'd forgotten or left out, thinking that our application was possibly about to be refused. We had been asked to go back two hours before we were meant to, so naturally we were very worried.

BACK IN THE PEO

We cleared security again and sat there for 15 minutes, terrified. Eventually we were called up to a window where an IO, not our original guy, told us everything had been approved and the biometric permit would be arriving in the post. The relief was incredible! Neither of us could believe our application had been processed in just over 30 minutes. We were so pleased.



In terms of documents, we took more than we needed. Off the top of my head we had:

-Our passports
-K's biometric card
-Letter of absences (both work and personal, work one was signed by her boss)
-Letters from employers stating our wages
-Letter from Nationwide stating our savings
-Savings book
-6 months of payslips each
-6 months of bank statements each
-38 letters over 2 years (ridiculous, I know, but this application costs a fortune and we weren't chancing it! When we got it all back they'd picked the 6 they wanted)
-Photocopies of everything above to save them, and us, time.

I think that's pretty much everything.

From our experience, Cardiff PEO was an absolute pleasure - staff were courteous, friendly, efficient and excellent communicators.

Hope this account helps anyone who may be applying there, or maybe somewhere else to some extent.

[GrahamD85]

Just to add - our documents were in two folders. One contained our original documents and the other the photocopies. Every document was in a plastic wallet and we'd used colour dividers with labels to create sections for passports, absences, finances and documents. It helped us see exactly what we had and I'm sure the IO was grateful everything was at his fingertips and easy to find.

I did forget one item we took with us - K's Life in Britain pass notification letter.