ILR Success at Croydon Office - on Limited Company

[nzgreenie]

As is customary I thought I’d share my success at Croydon this week to help others. In particular, there is not so many people who talk about what happens if you work through a Limited Company setup so hopefully someone will find this useful.

The best piece of advice I got prior to going was to treat it like you are going to court to prove something – so have at least 2 if not 3 forms of evidence. The more you have, the less they look into you apparently!

My Application:

I took with me:

General:

• Application form (obviously)
• Life in the UK test confirmation (after temporarily removing it from the glassed-frame above our fireplace)
• 3 passports (current and 2 previous) covering the 10 years I’d been in the UK, after first arriving on Working Holiday and switching to HSMP Under-28 programme
• 2x passport-sized photos
• Degree certificate (The application form said as I had previously renewed Tier 1, I didn’t need to resubmit but I don’t trust them!)

Income:

• Personal Bank statements with all salary and dividend payments across 12 months in highlighted ink
• Business Bank statements with salary and dividend payments across 12 months in highlighted ink
• I wrote out all of these payments and which personal bank statement page corresponded with a business bank statement page so they could easily find them
• Letter from my accountant confirming he is a chartered accountant, my name, that I am the sole director and shareholder, my company name, companies house registration number, that I was ‘of good character’ (good thing my accountant doesn’t audit my weekends on the tiles!) and the total amount I paid myself across the 12 month period.

My accountant wanted to charge me £350 to generate all of my payslips and dividend vouchers but I though this way too steep and assumed the statements would be enough. I did manage to wangle the letter for free, though they weren’t happy about it!

Absences:

I had been out of the UK 202 full days in total (not counting departure/arrival days – I think it came to about 250 including those) over 5 years. The longest single absence was 46 full days. All were holiday/home country visits, no work-related trips. I wrote all of these out for the past 5 years on a separate piece of paper, matching my passport stamps.

Clearly as a Limited Company director I do not get ‘annual leave’, so I asked the personnel agencies that place me in assignments, to sign a letter confirming the dates I was working, when during each assignment I was out of the country on holiday, and also that any dates I was out of the country and not in a contract that I was in regular email and phone contact with them seeking new work on my return.

Finally, I printed out evidence of my travels in the form of flight and hotel booking receipts. On occasion I didn’t have this e.g. a friend booked the holiday so I printed the email conversation from the time. Whilst I cannot be certain, when my application was returned it did appear they hadn’t looked at this but I am sure it didn’t hurt!

My Experience:

My appointment was at 9:50 – I arrived at 9am and went straight through security. I was assigned my ‘number’ which they use to call you up to the counter at each stage of the process.

I paid my fee and handed over my application. I had a nice ring-bind folder with it all arranged , dividers written on to show what was what but they told me to take this all out and just stick it in these clear-plastic folders and put a rubber band around it. So much for being organised!

I had my biometrics taken. Apparently I was pressing too hard on the fingerprint scanner and it took him ages to get mine to work.
A word about the photo on your biometric card. I had done my photo booth ones expecting those to be used, but they have sent me one they took themselves on the day which I look AWFUL in. A small thing but had I known I might have composed myself a bit more!

Then I went to the cafeteria to wait out the process. At some point, the biometric system went down causing loads of people delays.

I was called up once as the person doing my application couldn’t find my company registered at Companies House when she was searching the name. But it was on my accountant’s letter and she found it after that (so obviously they check this). This seemed to indicate they were getting on with my application even though they had problems with the biometric system.

Just on 5hours after I arrived, at 2pm, they called me up for the final time and said it had been approved. Yey!

Biometric card arrived signed-delivery just 2 days later (today). Thank goodness I am working from home today to get it.

So that’s it! Sorry if this is quite detailed but something here may at least help calm someone down before the day. There were lots of nervous immigrants in there!

Thanks again to those on the forum who put up with my inane and occasionally idiotic questions.

nzgreenie

[goldfish]

Very helpful, thanks for sharing your experience with a limited company application.

I am interested that your agencies were willing to sign a letter stating the dates you were out of the country - did they raise any questions about that? I can understand that they should show the days you were not working (no invoices) but thought they would be reluctant to confirm days of the country since they wouldn't know what you were doing with your time off.

[nzgreenie]

I am on good terms with my agencies so they didn't question really! But they know me pretty well and all remembered me talking to them via emails as I travelled, which I like to take a few weeks off between contracts as that's the best time.. it's not really appropriate to take 2+ weeks off when you are on an assignment.

Plus given they take 20% of my daily rate, it's in their interests to do so!

Two just went with what I had drafted for them. A third went to their legal department and came back with the below which was more generic but seemed to do the trick.

I think by itself it may have been weaker but combined with the travel and hotel receipts it shows what I was doing at those times not in a contract.

To Whom it may concern,
Re: <my name>

I am writing to confirm that the above named candidate is currently engaged on a temporary assignment on a contract for services through <agency>.

Client Name: <company>
Start Date: <date>

This assignment is due to run until <date> however' due to the temporary
nature the assignment may be terminated at any time without a notice period.

| can confirm that <my name> took leave from his assignment at <company> between:
<holiday date range>
<holiday date range>

I can also confirm that we remained in contact with <name> between <holiday date range when out of contract> and he was work seeking during this time.

This reference is provided in the strictest of confidence and is given in good faith without recourse to <agency>. Please contact if I can be of further
assistance.

Yours sincerely...

[goldfish]

Thanks, very helpful. Did you take any weekend breaks during your contract? And if so, what evidence did you provide of those absences?

I can see how an agency could show the dates you were not working (no invoicing and after contract end date), however they wouldn't have visibility of weekend breaks because you wouldn't invoice for those dates anyway.

Also, I assume that your non-working periods were all outside the UK? My list of non-working periods would include UK holidays so would not match my "days out of the UK spreadsheet" and might create confusion...

[stokbrig]

Congratulations and many thanks for sharing your experience.
A couple of questions please;
1-Can you advise on the best method for filing documents and what kind of folder should be used.
2-How do you rate the service at Croydon and do you recommend it?

Thanks in advance

[nzgreenie]

Hi goldfish,

I took several weekend breaks. I just listed all the dates that I was out of the country and got the agency to sign for those. Sorry I don’t think they were through; they just signed what I’d asked them! But whilst you have to list all your exit/entries, if you go out Sat and back in Sun I believe these do not count for any days out of the country as these are part-days; the guidance notes specifically say they only count full days.

Remember as well as the agency letter I had flight receipts and hotel bookings to show what I was doing on all of my times out of the country.

In terms of non-working periods, most of my extended time between contracts was out of the country; 4, 6 week blocks where I travelled. But I had several weeks of time off contract where I remained in the UK. I did not list these – the application form was not interested in the number of days you worked, just how much money you earned over the recent 12-month period and how much time you have spent out of the UK.

To answer your questions stokbrig:

Filing documents:

The overriding principle I took is to make it easy for the caseworker to match your evidence up – e.g. use title pages with instructions on how they match up using a line-by-line table, sticky labels and a highlighter pen. The easier you make it for them, the quicker they can do your application and the less hassle you may get from them!

The best way is to keep everything in A4 clearfiles and put title-pages in the front.

Put your application form in one clearfile, then your bank statements and payslips/other evidence in another two, with a title page explaining how these match up (and highlight all the payments so they can see the numbers).

Similarly for holidays, put all the booking receipts into one or more A4 clearfiles (there were many so I did one per year) and use white-sticky labels on the front to say how they correlate to your passport stamps / time out of the country – highlight the dates on all the booking receipts.
I put this in a clip-bind folder but they took everything out and gave me back the folder before sending the rest off.

Service:

I can’t fault their friendliness and service – everyone I spoke to at each stage of the day was great. It wasn’t great that the biometric server went down for several hrs, but that’s not their fault. Though I understand this is a frequent occurrence; it also happened to a friend of mine recently who was there and had to go back the next day.

Would I recommend Croydon – yes!