Experiences with the Settlement Checking Service

I made an appointment today with the Settlement Checking Service in Cardiff.  The woman I spoke with said I was only the fourth person to enquire about it!!  Of course it has only been available since last week, so that's not a bad number.  Anyway, my appointment is for the twentieth of December.  When I phoned up, she asked me several questions about my visa and circumstances--what type of visa, when was it issued, did I take the KOL test, was I still married, etc.  She said she would send me an appointment confirmation by post, along with a list of the things to bring to the appointment.  So here's hoping!  I really do hope that this will mean faster processing than just posting the application would have.  

Anyone else planning to use, or already used, this service?  Post your experiences here!  

I'm considering it for my ILR app in January, and will be following your experience with much interest. I'm not entirely convinced yet, since processing times seem quite reasonable these days, usually less than a month, at least according to the other topic.

We'll see though, if you get yours back in a week or something I may decide to spend the extra cash on it. What's an extra £80 when you're already spending £900?

So I had my appointment for the SCS yesterday.  The weather in Cardiff was awful, but the registry office was open.  We arrived at about 9.45 for our 10.00 appointment but only had to wait a few minutes before someone came out to see us.  She collected our documents and went to photocopy them.  She said that it would be about 45 minutes, but it ended up being more like an hour and a half.  This was mainly because I entered via Dublin and so didn't have a stamp for my first entry.  Another person came out after about an hour and explained that the woman helping us was on the phone with the Home Office to find out how she should deal with our situation.  I pointed out that I had kept my boarding passes and a few other non-official-type things from the first few weeks I was here.  He said OK, he would photocopy those things and they would let us know when they were finished.  About twenty minutes later, the woman came back out and asked us to come with her.  We had been waiting at the reception of the Registry Office, but she took us through some corridors and into a small room with a desk and some chairs.  We sat down, and she explained again that it had taken so long because she had been on the phone to the Home Office, and that they said they would take my boarding passes into consideration, though they are not normally accepted as proof.  She said also that I was the first SCS appointment they had dealt with, and that someone from the Liverpool PEO was supposed to have come down that morning to help out, but had been prevented because of the snow, so that also contributed to the delay.  She reviewed our application with us, explained that they would mail it out the next day along with the photocopies of all our documents, and that the HO would be in touch if they needed further evidence or wanted to query anything.  Then I had to fill in a little tick-box checklist saying that I had completed all the necessary steps.  Next we went into a larger room where she charged my card for the £80, and then finally we returned to the little room, collected our documents, and she escorted us back to the entrance of the Cardiff City Hall.  All our original documents were returned except for my passport, obviously.  Everyone was incredibly nice and friendly, and I think the woman helping us was very concerned about making sure that everything was done as well as it could be, all the i's dotted and the t's crossed.  Considering I was the first one they'd done and they had no help on-site I think everything went pretty smoothly.  I also like that they were able to contact the Home Office directly (which obviously applicants can't) to make sure that our evidence would be acceptable.  It was nice to feel that someone was in our corner, though clearly she couldn't tell us if the application would be successful, she did say that the HO was aware of the situation re:Dublin, and that they would be sure to be in touch if they needed more information.  So overall, I feel like it was worth the £80.  Now we're just left to worry about whether the application will be approved!

I got my ILR today, exactly six weeks after my appointment at Cardiff.  I don't know if using the SCS actually did speed up the processing, since it seems that normal postal applications have been taking the same amount of time recently.  Still, what with the holidays and the weather and the fact that my passport had to go from Cardiff to Liverpool to Dorchester, really the processing time was not so bad. 

Plus, I've done the math, and even with the fact that we had to stay two nights in Cardiff because of the weather, plus the checking service fee plus the petrol to get there, it still cost significantly less than an in-person appointment.  So unless there's a really pressing reason why you can't go without your passport for a month or so, applying in-person seems like a waste of £350. 

So there it is.  I hope this helps anyone who's considering using the Settlement Checking Service. 

I used the Settlement Checking Service on 11 July 2011 in London at Hackney Service Center. 

At first, I thought you had to live in the borough in order to receive this service.  As mine didn't provide it, I didn't think I could use it.  I was happy to learn when I contacted Hackney that it didn't matter that I didn't live in Hackney.  Plus, it didn't take long to get an appointment.  I booked on a Wednesday for the following Monday but I think they had one other open appointment before then if we could have made it.

I went with my UKC husband.  If working, you'll both need to find time to take off work to attend as these are weekday appointments.  They said we could have brought our 6-month old daughter along too.  This was an issue of childcare as she wasn't part of the application and, even if she had been it, would have been unnecessary for her to be present.  My SIL lives in Hackney so it was a great opportunity for baby to visit her auntie in our case though.  We were seen right at our appointment time.

The gentleman that checked our application was very kind and careful.  He had some sort of checklist form that he completed.  I entered through Dublin so he started off asking some questions to clarify my movements.  (I have a transfer stamp from Dublin on 9 June 2009, but no UK entry stamp from that day as there's no opportunity to see immigration when flying in from Ireland. My spousal visa was stamped on 5 January 2010 when I returned from a holiday.  So, my evidence of 2-years of residency isn't completely straightforward.)  There were rows for each month/year and as he saw a document from that date he would fill in the row - write down what type of correspondence.  He made notes in one column of the checklist sheet on issues like the passport stamps and places where I used correction fluid on the application, etc.  There were a couple items I intended to include, but he said were not really useful to include -- employer letters addressed to my husband but without our residential address on them.  We agreed not to include these as we had other evidence with pay slips and bank statements that was sufficient (he told us it was sufficient).

He also phoned UKBA regarding additional documentation about my Dublin entry.  This was the first time that Hackney had seen this.  UKBA just said to send documents as close to my time of entry as possible.  Hackney made this call before talking to me about what I had brought though, so he could have been armed with more information.  I don't know if he was going to tell me that he made this call, but I asked if he would phone to check that my documents about my entry would be acceptable and then he told me that he already called.  It sounds like Historyenne got more of a definitive answer from this call than I did.  But, I did consider being able to phone UKBA one of the reasons that it's worthy to pay the service fee.

The biggest benefit of the service for us was being able to keep my UKC husband's passport.  The rest of the originals we weren't really fussed about being without for a while. 

The appointment took about an hour and 15 minutes.  Most of the time was spent with the gentleman off at the photocopier with our documents.