Here is my ILR experience.
Preparation: I started educating myself on ILR in March 2012 from this forum. I have received a lot of good and useful information and tips/suggestions from members/mods. Big thank you to all.
Location note - there is another UKBA Regional office in Solihull. We asked a local person for UKBA office, and we were directed to this one. We were then redirected to the PEO office.
ILR Day: 10:20 appointment.
Standard procedure as other Solihull applicants (security, token etc..)
CW asked the following questions -
- What are you applying for - Settlement
What are you applying as - Work Permit
Have you changed employers in the 5 years - No.
Documents asked for (originals only):
- Form
Passports - Main + Dep.
Photos 2 each of Main + Dep (taken from a Tesco's photo booth 2 days earlier)
Employer letter - used the sticky template in this forum
LIUK (our scores - 24 and 23)
3 month payslips
3 month bank statements - corresponding entry for salaries were highlighted - CW liked this very much.
Cohab docs - I had a separate folder with Mine, Dep and Joint docs in different sets. CW asked for the Joint set, and pulled 3 out.
Slight hiccup with Employer letter because my CW (for whatever reason) was expecting my actual job title to match SOC table job title. CW asked for the original WP letter. Later CW was OK with 'closest match' and apologized for the delay.
10 mins later CW said it will be approved, pending Payment and Biometric checks.
Then asked for copies of all the above only.
Paid at the next counter. We did not have any arrangement with (Barclays) bank prior to making payment. However the clerk at payment said (and we had guts to ask since our paperwork were approved, subject to payment and biometric), if this payment failed, she would try other cards for us, or she would try the same card later after we had been to Barclays to ask them to allow this payment. I had carried 5 copies of payment sheet, just in case. This did not become necessary.
Biometric at 11:30. After biometric was successful, was asked to come back in 2 hours to collect paperwork.
2 pm collected paperwork, and driving back to London.
Our returned paperwork included -
- 2 separate confirmation letters, named/adressed to each of us.
CW returned 1 each of our photos.
LIUK original were returned.
Useful information:
- Took advantage of the '3 month' concession on delayed entry.
P60 or HMRC letter were not asked for.
Cohab docs - I had prepared 3 separate files - one in my name, one in my dep name and one in Joint names. The ones in joint names were insurance letters, mortgage letters, etc. We do not have joint bank accounts or joint utility bills.
Bank statement - For most recent month, used Barclays kiosk printouts, stamped in branch. CW said they were OK with it as it was standard issue by various banks.
We had no convictions/tickets etc. and We had zero absences.
Our two kids born in UK, but don't have dependent visa. So they were not included. They will be going straight for Registration.
Bottom section of page 11 of form (relevant to WP):
- BOX 1 : My SOC Code
BOX 2 : left blank as the corresponding salary for my SOC code was given 'annual'
BOX 3: the corresponding salary for my SOC code, not my actual salary.
BOX 4: 37.5
BOX 5: 1950 (37.5*52) -- this is exactly how I wrote it.
My contract is based on 40 hours, SOC is 37.5 hours. But this did not become an issue. I did not have to declare my actual hours anywhere.
Also, there was a slight mismatch between my WP salary and actual salary (this was still above current SOC salary level) for Year 1. This was never looked into by CW.
My advice:
1. If you think you need a certain document, then for your own peace of mind, get it.
2. Organization is the key. Eg, I had every piece of paper numbered and created a 'table of contents' for my documents.
3. You get all the advice you need for FREE in this forum. But you have to ASK the RIGHT questions.
Good luck to you all.
