ILR(M) Application Questions

Dear Immigration Gurus:

I'm starting to fill out our ILR(M) form and of course I have a gazillion questions. I'm American, he's British. We were married in the US in 2008 but moved back to the UK Aug 22nd, 2013. I was granted FLR(M) Apr 1st, 2016, which expires Oct 1st, 2018. Our premium processing appointment is booked for Sept. 10th. We have 2 young children (7 years old and 3 years old), who are both dual citizens.

Questions so far:
1) Do I need to print out the payment information section of the application if I have paid online for our premium processing appointment using my credit card, and now have the payment confirmation letter?

2) When I print out the pdf, bits of it are outside of the margins for A4 size and getting cut off at the top. Is that a problem? Does anyone have any suggestions for getting around it? I tried printing it in US letter size too, thinking that might shrink it to fit within the borders of the paper, but it still gets cut off.

3) When is the biometric permit payment made? It says I need to pay the postal office, but doesn't specify when or how much. For FLR(M) this was done at the premium processing centre appointment, if I recall correctly? Is that the same for ILR?

4) When is the issue date for my Biometric Residence Permit--the date it was granted to me (Oct 1st, 2016) or the date the letter with said permit arrived by post?

5) If we meet the income requirements on spouse salary earnings alone, there is no need to fill out any of the further sections on savings or pensions, right?

6) With regards to spouse salary (this is redundant, but I just want to be super, super clear) we need: the last 6 months of his pay slips, ending NO EARLIER than Aug 13th, 2018, the last 6 months of our bank account statements, ending NO EARLIER than Aug 13th, and the last 6 months of P60s ending NO EARLIER than Aug 13th, 2018. I can't find in the appendix where it specifies this 28 day time-frame, but I will take your word for it. So this means if he gets paid at the end of each moth, we should include the Aug 29th pay slip with us when we go to our Sept. 10th appointment, and have bank statements up through at least Aug 13th (at the earliest...but it would be ok/better to have bank statements later than that, so for example bank statements ending Aug 29th or 30th are ok)?

7) If we meet salary requirements, there is no need to fill out Section 8B - Maintenance, right?

Section 8C: accommodation. We own our house--a copy of our mortgage agreement is enough to satisfy the requirement of where we normally live?

9) Section 9.13 - How long I've lived in the UK - this will be 5 years on Aug 22nd, 2018. They ask me to list any times I've been absent from the UK, so does this mean they want me to list every holiday we've taken since Aug 22nd, 2013? And if we need an additional piece of paper for this (as 4 lines is not sufficient), where/ how do I attach it?

10) What does one put for social/ cultural ties? I still have family (sister and father) who live in the US, whom we visit. Do I need to list them here, and what do I say about them?

11) In the Documents and Photographs Checklist section they ask for correspondence to me and my partner, but they also ask for evidence of continuous residence in the UK in a separate section--isn't the correspondence to me and my partner proof of my continuous residence in the UK?

Whew, I think that's all for now!!

Thank you all SO MUCH for answering these questions!!! I suspect there will be more questions still to come, but this is a good start.
:-)
Ali

Hi NYC2LONDON

I am really glad you asked some of these questions as I was curious about some of them as well. 

However for your accommodation I would use the Land Register as it show you own the house and it is a governement office I believe.  I used it for my last two applications and will again as we own our home as well.  I believe there is a small fee of £2/3.

Questions so far:
1) Do I need to print out the payment information section of the application if I have paid online for our premium processing appointment using my credit card, and now have the payment confirmation letter?

I don’t believe you need to print the payment page of the form. Instead, you take your payment confirmation for the visa and appointment fees with you.

2) When I print out the pdf, bits of it are outside of the margins for A4 size and getting cut off at the top. Is that a problem? Does anyone have any suggestions for getting around it? I tried printing it in US letter size too, thinking that might shrink it to fit within the borders of the paper, but it still gets cut off.

This is not something I’ve seen anyone else mention before... maybe someone else who has applied recently has a solution. My only suggestion would be to keep playing with the printer settings to see if you can get it to fit and print properly.

3) When is the biometric permit payment made? It says I need to pay the postal office, but doesn't specify when or how much. For FLR(M) this was done at the premium processing centre appointment, if I recall correctly? Is that the same for ILR?

There is no payment, because your biometrics will be taken at your appointment. It’s only people who apply by post who have to pay £19.20 to the Post Office to get them done.

4) When is the issue date for my Biometric Residence Permit--the date it was granted to me (Oct 1st, 2016) or the date the letter with said permit arrived by post?

It is the start date listed on the permit under ‘place and date of issue’.

5) If we meet the income requirements on spouse salary earnings alone, there is no need to fill out any of the further sections on savings or pensions, right?

No, you only fill out the section that applies to the category you meet (either Cat A or Cat B). If you work but are not using your income, you also leave your employment details blank.

6) With regards to spouse salary (this is redundant, but I just want to be super, super clear) we need: the last 6 months of his pay slips, ending NO EARLIER than Aug 13th, 2018, the last 6 months of our bank account statements, ending NO EARLIER than Aug 13th, and the last 6 months of P60s ending NO EARLIER than Aug 13th, 2018. I can't find in the appendix where it specifies this 28 day time-frame, but I will take your word for it. So this means if he gets paid at the end of each moth, we should include the Aug 29th pay slip with us when we go to our Sept. 10th appointment, and have bank statements up through at least Aug 13th (at the earliest...but it would be ok/better to have bank statements later than that, so for example bank statements ending Aug 29th or 30th are ok)?

The P60 is only issued once a year, in April, so that will be dated April 2018.

For the payslips and bank statements need to cover an entire 6 months (not a day less) ending with the final statement date. The SAME 6 months must be covered by both the payslips and bank statements. This may mean including 7 months of each, to cover every single day of the 6 months. Each payslip deposit must be shown on the bank statements.

So if his last payslip is dated 29th August, your 6 months will be:
28th February to 29th August 2018.

So you will likely need to include payslips and bank statements from:
Feb
Mar
Apr
May
June
July
Aug

Depending on when your bank statements are issued, you may need to get the bank to print a partial statement before your appointment showing the deposit of the 29th August payslip.

The payslips must either be original (official documents handed to you by the company) or if printed from online they must be accompanied by a letter of authenticity.

The bank statements must either be official ones issued by the bank through the post or if printed from online banking, stamped/signed on every single page

The 28 days is specified several times in both Appendix FM 1.7 and Appendix FM-SE. It also applied for the financial requirements for your spousal visa and for FLR(M).

See:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/immigration-rules/immigration-rules-appendix-fm-se-family-members-specified-evidence

From that page:
(l) Where this Appendix requires the applicant to provide specified evidence relating to a period which ends with the date of application, that evidence, or the most recently dated part of it, must be dated no earlier than 28 days before the date of application.

7) If we meet salary requirements, there is no need to fill out Section 8B - Maintenance, right?

No, that is only for people who are exempt from meeting the financial requirements.

Section 8C: accommodation. We own our house--a copy of our mortgage agreement is enough to satisfy the requirement of where we normally live?

No, you must supply a copy of your Land Registry Document.

An optional extra is your latest original mortgage statement.

9) Section 9.13 - How long I've lived in the UK - this will be 5 years on Aug 22nd, 2018. They ask me to list any times I've been absent from the UK, so does this mean they want me to list every holiday we've taken since Aug 22nd, 2013? And if we need an additional piece of paper for this (as 4 lines is not sufficient), where/ how do I attach it?

Yes, they want every single absence from the UK. If there isn’t enough room you can either use the additional information section or a separate piece of paper. You don’t need to attach it to anything, just place it at the back of the form.

10) What does one put for social/ cultural ties? I still have family (sister and father) who live in the US, whom we visit. Do I need to list them here, and what do I say about them?

Just say something like:
- I have immediate family living in X state

The question is trying to find out whether, if your visa is refused and you have to leave the U.K., you have something to go back to in your home country.

11) In the Documents and Photographs Checklist section they ask for correspondence to me and my partner, but they also ask for evidence of continuous residence in the UK in a separate section--isn't the correspondence to me and my partner proof of my continuous residence in the UK?

I think that’s a mistake on the form... because only people on points-based visas have to prove continuous residence, so it doesn’t apply to you.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Dear KSand24: This is amazing! Thank you so much for such a thorough and detailed response. Are you guys paid to answer questions all day? It's really a remarkable service you're providing, and very much appreciated!

I had no idea about the land registry. I just filled out and sent off the application last night, so hopefully the official copy of our land register will arrive well before Sept. 10th. Thank you for that! I was just going to give them mortgage agreements and statements.

I had no idea about the land registry. I just filled out and sent off the application last night, so hopefully the official copy of our land register will arrive well before Sept. 10th. Thank you for that! I was just going to give them mortgage agreements and statements.

Most people just use the £3 version downloaded from online so if yours gets held up, you can fall back on that.

Dear KSand24: This is amazing! Thank you so much for such a thorough and detailed response. Are you guys paid to answer questions all day? It's really a remarkable service you're providing, and very much appreciated! [/quote

No problem .

Definitely don't get paid - this is a hobby .

I wrote that response while sitting in an airport in Cape Verde during an incredibly boring 7-hour delay. I had just got off a 6-hour flight and was waiting for the second leg of 10.5 hours... all for my actual job. I now get paid to spend 9 weeks in freezing temperatures in the southern-hemisphere winter (working approx 70 hours a week).

I had no idea about the land registry. I just filled out and sent off the application last night, so hopefully the official copy of our land register will arrive well before Sept. 10th. Thank you for that! I was just going to give them mortgage agreements and statements.

As mentioned above, just download an official copy from the Land Registry website for £3. Doesn't take more than a few minutes.

The mortgage agreement is not official proof of ownership though - only the Land Registry can prove that.

I had the problem of cutting the print area off when I did mine and had to mess with it for a while to find a solution.

If you click ‘print’ and choose ‘fit to page’ it will print without cutting anything off.

Hi guys:

Still plugging away at the documentation for this, ahead of our Sept. 10th IRL appointment. It turns out our GP wants to charge 30 GBP per child to send a letter to them confirming their address is the same as ours, so I am going to ask my child's school/ nursery to provide us with letters instead. What, exactly, should the letters say? They need to be addressed to the children, but what should the actual body of the letter say?

Hopefully I'll be able to put up a list of all of our documentation soon.

Thank you!

The letters should just confirm the child’s registered address.

I had the problem of cutting the print area off when I did mine and had to mess with it for a while to find a solution.

If you click ‘print’ and choose ‘fit to page’ it will print without cutting anything off.

Can confirm this worked out for me as well!

Aaaand now a correspondence question: looking at my FLR(M) documents, it looks like I broke each year up into 6 month chunks, so I had correspondence from Jan-June, then July-Dec chunks. Is that also sufficient for ILR(M), or should I provide correspondence quarterly, or every 4 months? Thank you!!

Aaaand now a correspondence question: looking at my FLR(M) documents, it looks like I broke each year up into 6 month chunks, so I had correspondence from Jan-June, then July-Dec chunks. Is that also sufficient for ILR(M), or should I provide correspondence quarterly, or every 4 months? Thank you!!

For FLR(M), you only cover 2 years, but for ILR, you have to cover 2.5 years of correspondence... that's 6 documents each, evenly spread over 30 months... so you'll want 1 document in each name every 5 months.

Ok, great. Thank you! And now a question about P60s--we need P60s that cover the entire 30 month period, right? So we would provide P60s from April 2016, April 2017, and April 2018, correct?

I am relying on my husband's income, and he was self-employed for part of the last 30 months, but has been currently employed for over a year with a salary that easily meets the financial requirement, so we are providing 6 months of payslips/ bank statements from salaried employment (Cat. A). Does it matter if the earlier P60 from the year that he was self-employed (2017) was only just over the 18,600 threshold requirement? So long as it's over the 18,600 minimum, it's fine, correct?

Thank you again!!

Ok, great. Thank you! And now a question about P60s--we need P60s that cover the entire 30 month period, right? So we would provide P60s from April 2016, April 2017, and April 2018, correct?

No, that's not correct. You don't need to provide any P60s for the visa.

If you like, you can include the most recent P60 (April 2018), but it is not a required document. We do recommend that it is included though, as they may ask to see it.

I am relying on my husband's income, and he was self-employed for part of the last 30 months, but has been currently employed for over a year with a salary that easily meets the financial requirement, so we are providing 6 months of payslips/ bank statements from salaried employment (Cat. A). Does it matter if the earlier P60 from the year that he was self-employed (2017) was only just over the 18,600 threshold requirement? So long as it's over the 18,600 minimum, it's fine, correct?

As I said, you don't need to include any P60s. They are not and never have been a required document.

As he is Category A, you only need to show the most recent 6 months of income... so nothing earned more than 6 months ago will be considered.

So, say you are applying in early September 2018, you would provide:
Mandatory
- payslips from March 2018 to Aug/Sept 2018
- bank statements from March 2018 to Aug/Sept 2018
- a letter from the employer dated in the last 28 days before applying

Optional, but recommended, as they may ask for them:
- his original job contract
- his April 2018 P60