Success! YMS to unmarried partner visa FLR(M), Croydon PSC

[Tralai]

Hello, everyone. I've read many threads in this forum since six months ago as research for this visa. And yesterday , the visa is granted. *clap clap clap
So, I'm here to share my experiences with you all and hopefully it will help you a little bit for your future application.

A little background here,
I'm from Hong Kong on YMS, visa dated 29/10/2015-29/10/2017.
My boyfriend is British citizen by birth.
We lived together since my first landing in the UK, 29/10/2015
Up til the application date, we're two days short for the cohabitation requirement (24 months)

We don't have many bills to us because water, gas bills only comes every quarter year and we have prepaid meter for electricity.

Here's are some cohabiting documents we have for the application.

Southern water (joint names) July 2017
Portsmouth water (joint names) July 2017

License to occupy letter (applicant) Nov 2015
NI confirmation letter (applicant) Dec 2015
GP Registration letter (applicant) Feb 2016
P60 (applicant) April 2016
Tax refund notice (applicant) Aug 2016
Bank statement (applicant) Dec 2016
P60 (applicant) April 2017
Bank statement (applicant) Oct 2017

GP registration (sponsor) Nov 2015
Council tax bill (sponsor) Mar 2016
Portsmouth water (sponsor) May 2016
British Gas (sponsor) Jan 2017
Npower (sponsor) Mar 2017
Car tax reminder (sponsor) Aug 2017

English requirement :
IELTS Life Skills for UKVI Level B1

We provided 12 payslips and 12 months statements for financial because my boyfriend had a little rise in June which made it not the same salary continually for 6 months, so on the checklist it asked for 12 instead.
My boyfriend doesn't do any post in statements. so we ordered 12 months amount of the transaction record from Natwest.
As well a letter from hr detailed employment start date, salary rate and start date, employment type (fixed - term / temporary /permanent).

Mandatory documents :
Applicant's passport
Sponsor's passport
Passport photos (applicant x 2, sponsor x 1)
Current BRP
Police registration certificate (if you have one)
IHS payment and reference confirmation
Visa fee payment confirmation


On the application reminder email does mentioned photocopies of your documents can help spend up the application. Unfortunately, we didn't have enough time to copy everything, so we only have bank records, payslips and passports copies.

Our appointment was at 12:50 in Croydon Centre. We arrived 12:20, yes a little bit too early. We went through airport security downstairs then headed up to 3rd floor.
Luckily there wasn't a queue, so we just went up to the reception, show both passports, my brp, give out appointment ref number (on the document checklist). All been checked, given us a number and asked to wait at the bench right next to reception. 5 minutes later, we've been called to the registration counter. Two nice ladies greet us, once again give out our passports and application. They start to input details in the computer system. The lady said she doesn't always see the online application form which confuses her a little bit of where everything is. After inputting details, she asked if I wanted to have my brp send to home address or somewhere else. I chose to have it send home.
They gave us two folders to put our documents in, one for original, one for copies. After that, one of the lady brought me to another counter for biometric records. It's very easy fingerprints scanning, photo taking and a signature record. After all this done. It was just 12:50.

And after some wait at the cafeteria, we headed out to the shopping centre cross the street for lunch. We headed back into the centre about 15:30. The number calling monitors are basically broken. We realised there are two tables of numbers for awaiting consideration and under consideration. But them two only appear on screen every 30 seconds for 0.5 seconds. You can barely read the numbers on it. We ended up taking videos of the screen and chase back for that half a second to read the table.
Turned out our application didn't appear under consideration until 1700. Result was out at 17:40. They called three numbers to the same counter at the same time so I was sure it was a successful application, but my boyfriend was very nervous about it.
We went to the counter, the lady apologized about the delay and the application was successful. She gave us back all the original documents but not my brp (???) (I didn't care enough because it expires in 2 days)
We sorted out everything in the backpack and hugging in happiness.

So far it was a happy experience. I've expected the long wait so we have kindles and headphones with us.
And it made the goal as I aimed to leave the place before 6pm.