re-entering country shortly before visa expires

[UKBA's got me down]

Hi all,

A brief description of my situation:

I'm currently on a Tier 1 Post-study Work visa but that expires January 5th, 2013. I've been working for a legitimate UK company for about a year and a half now and they are willing to sponsor me under the Tier 2 (General) category. We submitted the sponsorship license application in July but because of the appalling delay in process times for these applications at the moment, we've only just heard back from them a couple weeks ago, and, long story short, the application has been rejected. We're going to resubmit it and request urgent processing as well, so there's actually still a chance we may get the certificate of sponsorship (CoS) number in time before my visa expires.

Even if we're still waiting on the CoS I plan on submitting my visa application by the day before it expires, with or without the number. I won't go into the details of that here because that's a topic for another thread.

Now to get to the point: I have had a trip to the US planned over the Christmas holidays for a long time now, it's an important trip and I'd really, really be hesitant to cancel it. I arrive back in the UK (Heathrow) on Jan 1st. I know that the UKBA website specifies that you'll be allowed entry into the country up until the day your visa expires, and I've also called to confirm this as well, but I must say the whole situation makes me pretty nervous.

I guess it's kind of luck of the draw with which border officer you get, but I'm really worried about them grilling me on what I'm planning to do when my visa expires. That's why I'm wondering if anyone has any experience with coming into the country just a few days before their visa will expire and still being in a somewhat uncertain situation concerning their new visa.

Any stories to share or advice to give on how to approach the situation would be much appreciated. I planned on just going with the honest approach, but I'm interested to see if anyone has some tips.

Thanks in advance for your response

[mulderpf]

You would have valid leave to enter on the date of entry and whilst you might have a few difficult questions to answer, you aren't doing anything wrong at the moment. As long as nothing you say can be taken as you are going to become an overstayer, there's not much anyone can do to prevent you from entering. Personally, as long as you know that you are doing everything by the book, I wouldn't worry too much about it.