Success at Sheffield - Dodgy WP employer -> Tier 2

[Qwerty-UK]

Hi guys. My wife (my dependent) and I received ILR at Sheffield today. We were on work permit from 2008-2010, and on Tier 2 for the last 3 years. Our appointment was at 9am and we were out by 11:15am. Made payment, had documents checked, did biometrics and 45 minutess later it was approved

I'm putting a few details of my case because both my company's solicitor and people on this forum said that it's not a straight forward case. The company's solicitor even backed out of representing me as they thought it had little chance of success.

I came to the UK in September 2008 and sponsored by CompanyA (work permit). When I received my first salary, it was under CompanyB, a sister company based in the same office and run by the same directors. When I questioned this, I was told it's nothing to worry about and they form part of the same group of companies. This was breach of WP regulations already.

In January 2010 the company hit financial difficulties. I stayed with them for a little while but eventually started with a new Tier 2 sponsor in July, CompanyC. Between this time, I took CompanyA to the employment tribunal for missed salaries.

So yesterday I applied for ILR and provided the following for the Tier 2 part:

• Company C letter and last payslip
• Last month's bank statement highlighting salary
• Cohabitation evidence - 1 year council tax statement, 3 month's joint account

And the following for the work permit part:

• Covering letter explaining my situation and pointing out the following information:
• Work permit with CompanyA
• Companies House documents showing the shared address and director names
• All payslips from CompanyB + P60 from 2008/2009
• HMRC correspondence and my employment history letter (with CompanyB mentioned in the letter)
• All bank statements showing salaries from CompanyB
• Employment tribunal documents with CompanyA

Here is where it gets interesting. They kept photocopies of the Tier 2 documents, but returned everything from my WP documents. However, they kept my cover letter.

So despite the so called complexity, it was approved in 45 minutes Hope this information helps someone.