# My wife got her ILR (our in-person appointment experience)



## manny.j (Dec 4, 2011)

I have been waiting for the last few days to share this with others that my wife got her Indefinite Leave to Remain visa only in 11 days when we landed in the UK from the USA, which was last week but waited until she got her Biometric Residence Permit (BRP) this morning!

A day before our appointment, we went through all our documentation couple of times and made sure everything was in order before going to sleep 

We made in-person appointment and, _*for our situation and circumstances*_, the whole thing was very straight-forward. In the beginning, the security check was very smooth took less than 4 minutes in total to go through this procedure.

We then went inside this room with a few people. One friendly security officer assigned us a ID number and told us to sit till our name is called. 

10 minutes later, my wife's ID number was announced and we then went to this counter where a friendly immigration officer was sitting behind this glass-screen.

He took our passports, application form and our big thick folder with all our original documentation. Initially he looked a little confused and wondered what we were there for (not sure why!). We then explained that my wife has a KOL-REQ endorsement on her passport as we have been married for 4+ years... as soon as heard and saw that stamp on the passport, he spoke to us for few minutes :director: and then he decided to return all our documentation. He was firm and professional as well as fair, polite and respectable throughout our chat. I believe everyone has separate situation and circumstance but this is specifically for our situation. He just took both mine and my wife's passports, our SET(M) application form with the photos, and the KOL pass letter. Actually, he returned my wife's passport and kept mines and said I will get it back at the end of the process. 

We then waited for 10 minutes before her ID number was announced. We went inside this room and there was another friendly immigration officer who took my wife's passport, scanned it, finger-printed her, took her photo hoto: and just had 'casual' conversation asking my wife ...again all the immigration officers we met were very friendly to us. He told us to wait for 45 minutes to do conventional security checks on my wife's background.

Then 30-45 minutes later, her id was announced again and we went to this window again and had this immigration officer providing us the receipt for the procedure, and a letter (which she told us verbally about waiting 5-10 days for my wife's biometric residence permit card)....and that is it!  

In fact they tried delivering her card only on the 3rd day after the appointment but somehow missed us hence we got a letter from the delivery firm asking us to confirm the delivery date and today we got her BRP in our hands :clap2:

I will not deny the stress-level for the whole procedure was high and we put in a lot of effort in organizing and collecting every single document we felt was necessary to present our case for her ILR application. Even the immigration officer who chatted to us for a few minutes (as stated above) appeared to be impressed by our effort and stated we did our homework :nerd: far more than many others he has dealt with. 

And now we are very relived (more than happy!) :amen: and will go out to celebrate her obtaining her UK green-card....next stop for us now is her UK citizenship in 3 years time. :dance: :tea: arty:

Thanks to all my friends :hug: here for sharing their experience and knowledge on this matter and of course Joppa for his excellent advice. eace:


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## 2farapart (Aug 18, 2011)

CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!!!!!!

One thing for sure! You've escaped the potential tough changes and you can now relax.

Your experience sounds like a copybook account of our same-day FLR - which is reassuring to know because (disregarding the enormous stress beforehand) the whole experience was actually much more simple and pleasant than we ever expected.

We have a whole two years to wait and all the uncertainties that lie ahead. We meet the proposed new income thresholds, but extending the 2 years to 5 years worries me in that they can implement many more tough rules in those remaining extra years. Still, immediate pressure now is my partner reading her KOL book and agonising about how she is to remember what percentage of the UK is currently Scottish, what year and how many people we recruited for driving buses and how many students go on to further education!!! I have NO idea because I can't remember the facts either!


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## manny.j (Dec 4, 2011)

2farapart said:


> CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!!!!!!
> 
> One thing for sure! You've escaped the potential tough changes and you can now relax.
> 
> ...


Thank you 2farapart  Yes, we are very relieved especially as we escaped the tough changes ahead....the pressure was immense and because we have been married for 4+ years, we felt it probably is our last chance to get her ILR without any tough measures which could jeopardize our plans. To say we are relieved is an understatement.

I am aware what you and others in same situation as yourself (AIS, BailyBanksBiddle et al.) must be going through although I do hope anyone who has already been issued with 2 year spouse visa is not affected by the new rules especially the extension to 5 years. 

From my wife's experience, preparation for KOL is not as simple as many stated...although she completed and passed it within 5 minutes of the test but there are some 'gotcha' questions so one should really do good preparation and not underestimate this test.


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## AnAmericanInScotland (Feb 8, 2012)

Add my congrats for MrsManny.J, and my thanks for the first hand reporting on the ILR appointment 

Between you and 2FarApart a lot of questions are answered in a readable (got a number of good giggles from the wonderful writing in both reports-Manny.J, especially those emoticons-love the bullhorn and photographer).

Here's hoping those of us in the two year probationary period don't have to extend out to five years!

And tell MrsManny.J I know just what she means about the KOL studying being less the breeze some folks would like to claim. I'm sure it's in part to how very important passing is, and perhaps too at my age due to the less elastic learning half of the brain, lol. 

I've got to say though that I think this is a common experience of people studying for citizenship tests. Polls of naturalised US citizens indicate they know far more about the USA than native borns-surely it's the same way here in the UK. 

But, DAAAAANG, I'm having to go back over things a lot after the practice test shows I'm not retaining the info! :ranger:


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## 2farapart (Aug 18, 2011)

> A day before our appointment, we went through all our documentation couple of times and made sure everything was in order before going to sleep


And how about the 11th-hour "OMG!!!! We don't have document [x]!!" 

Or was that our personal nervous breakdown?! They didn't even want our library of papers.


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## Dylan-is-Caths (Aug 18, 2011)

AnAmericanInScotland said:


> I'm sure it's in part to how very important passing is, and perhaps too at my age due to the less elastic learning half of the brain, lol.


Yes seeing as I cannot possibly remember what I had for dinner last night I find the facts and figures you are supposed to know extremely painful to remember. :laser: <---------------Shoot me now! How the heck am I supposed to remember how many Kids go on to secondary school (1 out of 3, what do ya know I did remember some useless fact) or what holidays are celebrated by other religions. 

What the heck does this have to do with living here? <--------------Yes now feeling like the idiot from abroad.

I have also had friends become US citizens and it is exactly the same for born and naturalized citizens so I shouldn't be all that surprised. :wacko:


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## AnAmericanInScotland (Feb 8, 2012)

Dylan-is-Caths said:


> Yes seeing as I cannot possibly remember what I had for dinner last night I find the facts and figures you are supposed to know extremely painful to remember. :laser: <---------------Shoot me now! How the heck am I supposed to remember how many Kids go on to secondary school (1 out of 3, what do ya know I did remember some useless fact) or what holidays are celebrated by other religions.
> 
> What the heck does this have to do with living here? <--------------Yes now feeling like the idiot from abroad.
> 
> I have also had friends become US citizens and it is exactly the same for born and naturalized citizens so I shouldn't be all that surprised. :wacko:


It is not easy for me to remember those stats-even though I am retired from stats, I used to rattle off the numbers from as many as 75 years ago no trouble

I must say though that through the studying I actually am a bit more confidant when out and about-I actually understand the differences between Scottish and English educational systems, for example, and so am able to have better conversations with parenting friends and neighbours. I'm also actually beginning to understand the political system here (big plus since I plan to go for citizenship and vote)-something I really wasn't sure I was ever going to 'get' from following current affairs in news feeds and TV.

But, daaaaaaang, I'm having to go back over things a lot after the practice test shows I'm not retaining the info!

We should start a study thread, if only for commiseration purposes


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## manny.j (Dec 4, 2011)

2farapart said:


> And how about the 11th-hour "OMG!!!! We don't have document [x]!!"
> 
> Or was that our personal nervous breakdown?! They didn't even want our library of papers.


That is the thing...I organized all my documents in a foolproof way (by my definition ) so if there was any doubt of something missing...I added some sort of support document or comment to clarify any thing that was not obvious. I spend a lot of time doing that for my wife's Entrance Visa in the US (on basis of which she got her KOL REQ endorsement) and I applied same procedure here. The only concern I had was not having the latest UK bank statements so we had a few days before the appointment to go to our local bank and ask them for the statements...unfortunately as many know UK banks like Lloyd and BOS have poor service and they do not issue bank statements in person but need to buy the statements (5 pounds each) which are then delivered to us by post...fortunately the statements were mailed to us on time and we got them just 2 days before our appointment. So we had everything we believed we needed to present our case  But like you said, I did all the work but they refused to go through the documentation as they probably go by their instincts as well as saw KOL REQ on her passport which itself for them was that our application was prescreened in the US so we had a fairly easy ride.


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## AnAmericanInScotland (Feb 8, 2012)

manny.j said:


> That is the thing...I organized all my documents in a foolproof way (by my definition ) so if there was any doubt of something missing...I added some sort of support document or comment to clarify any thing that was not obvious. I spend a lot of time doing that for my wife's Entrance Visa in the US (on basis of which she got her KOL REQ endorsement) and I applied same procedure here. The only concern I had was not having the latest UK bank statements so we had a few days before the appointment to go to our local bank and ask them for the statements...unfortunately as many know UK banks like Lloyd and BOS have poor service and they do not issue bank statements in person but need to buy the statements (5 pounds each) which are then delivered to us by post...fortunately the statements were mailed to us on time and we got them just 2 days before our appointment. So we had everything we believed we needed to present our case  But like you said, I did all the work but they refused to go through the documentation as they probably go by their instincts as well as saw KOL REQ on her passport which itself for them was that our application was prescreened in the US so we had a fairly easy ride.


How exactly did you organise the supporting documents, and did you put them into a binder? 

I think you and 2Far are right in thinking it's an instinctive thing with the IO but knowing how you were prepared to present your documentation would be a good thing-especially for those of us going in without the KOL REQ endorsement.


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## Joppa (Sep 7, 2009)

AnAmericanInScotland said:


> How exactly did you organise the supporting documents, and did you put them into a binder?
> 
> I think you and 2Far are right in thinking it's an instinctive thing with the IO but knowing how you were prepared to present your documentation would be a good thing-especially for those of us going in without the KOL REQ endorsement.


UKBA counter staff at PEOs are under pressure to deliver 24-hour turnaround target for personal callers, so they just have to profile applicants and spend minimum time over those that are likely to be straightforward and non-contentious, just as immigration officers do at airports. There is a risk involved in this tactic of course, and rogue ones sometimes get through, but the alternative is ever increasing queues, missed target, demolarised staff and more polital woes for the government. Postal applications receive greater scrutiny.

For the frontline airport staff, the government has mandated they check everyone thoroughly, including background screening on warning index, which will inevitably mean longer wait.


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## manny.j (Dec 4, 2011)

AnAmericanInScotland said:


> How exactly did you organise the supporting documents, and did you put them into a binder?
> 
> I think you and 2Far are right in thinking it's an instinctive thing with the IO but knowing how you were prepared to present your documentation would be a good thing-especially for those of us going in without the KOL REQ endorsement.



Yes, I did put them in a binder with index-tabs. Basically, I presented it as if its a PhD. thesis and divided the documents in different 'chapters' (sections):

Content List (including page numbers)
Evidence of our finances
Evidence of us living together
Evidence of our accommodation
Evident of our education and employment
Photographs since our marriage
Appendix section 

Because we have been living together since our marriage, we combined everything (ie our finances and address where we live etc). Key point, in my view, is to be clear and transparent when presenting our case and use clear-simple English in cover-letters ...we don't want the IO to get frustrated if our documentation is not properly organized...not that it should count towards the decision but its best to give good presentation which, for me, also reflects in a positive limelight on the applicant and the sponsor.


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## BailyBanksBiddle (Feb 8, 2012)

manny.j said:


> I have been waiting for the last few days to share this with others that my wife got her Indefinite Leave to Remain visa only in 11 days when we landed in the UK from the USA, which was last week but waited until she got her Biometric Residence Permit (BRP) this morning!
> 
> A day before our appointment, we went through all our documentation couple of times and made sure everything was in order before going to sleep
> 
> ...


Good news, what a relief for you. Now the fun begins!!!:clap2:


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