# SET(M) success: our timeline and documents



## MND (Oct 3, 2014)

OUR EXPERIENCE
Our SET(M) application for ILR was granted today. Here is our timeline, our documents and experience. Hopefully this is as helpful as other people’s experiences on this site have been to us. (I am not a visa advisor, I’m just someone who’s gone through the process).

A.	TIMELINE:
1)	14 Dec 2014: Entered on first UK Spouse visa
2)	14 July 2017: Renewed spouse visa in Croydon
3) 9 Dec 2019: Submitted online SET(M) application for ILR and paid for super priority service. 
4) 9 Dec 2019: Booked and paid for Sopra Steria appointment
5)	14 Dec 2019: 5 year anniversary of entering the UK on first spouse visa
6)	8 Jan 2020: 
a.	09h00: Sopra Steria appointment to verify documents. 
(Booked on 9 Dec 2019, this was the first appointment available in Hemel Hempstead despite paying £125! We didn’t want to travel anywhere and decided to take this appointment.)
b.	14h56: Email received: “Application for ILR granted”

B.	OUR DOCUMENTS:
•	Each item mentioned below was done as one pdf file, e.g. section 1 was 3 PDFs, section 4 was 4 PDFs, etc.
•	Documents uploaded in each section on the Sopra Steria site:

1.	Proof of ID and travel history
a.	Applicant passport – all pages and the cover
b.	Sponsor passport – all pages and the cover (still in maiden name)
c.	Applicant BRP – front and back 

2.	Proof of application
a.	Sopra Steria appointment booking confirmation – needs to be printed and taken to appointment
b.	Screenshot of proof of payment for application (probably not necessary)
c.	Sponsor declaration in maiden name as per passport 
d.	Sponsor letter to explain that passport and land registry documents are in maiden name, but all other documents are in married name and that declaration was signed using maiden name as per passport

3.	Residence
a.	Joint correspondence covering 2.5 years (at least 3 sources; 6 items+2 extra to be sure )
i.	Joint bank statement - dated 3 July 2017
ii.	Joint bank statement – dated 8 December 2017
iii.	Joint council tax bill – dated March 2018
iv.	Joint water bill – dated October 2018
v.	Joint council tax bill – dated March 2019
vi.	Joint water bill – dated 12 October 2019
vii.	Joint bank statement – dated 8 November 2019
viii.	Joint bank statement – dated 10 December 2019

b.	Land registry document in Sponsor maiden name dated 9 December 2019
c.	Letter from mortgage company dated 5 December 2019 in sponsor married name, summarising movement on account for the last 2 years. We only get this statement once a year in January, so we requested a letter to have up to date information for the application

4.	Financial
a.	Bank statements showing sponsor salary payments for June to Nov 2019
b.	Joint council tax bill – dated March 2019
c.	Mortgage letter as in 3.c above

5.	Sponsor employment
a.	Employer letter, dated 9 December 2019 confirming all prescribed information and that attached payslips are original. 
b.	Sponsor payslips for 6 months: all dated last day of calendar month: June to November 2019. They were stamped with the company stamp and signed as “this is an original copy” by both payroll and the person signing the employer letter.
c.	P60 for April-2019. Not stamped and signed
d.	Bank statements as in 4.a above showing sponsor salary payments for June to Nov 2019

6.	Life events
a.	Marriage certificate

7.	Education
a.	English B1 certificate – passed in Aug 2019. Previous tests were the wrong level.
b.	Life in the UK pass certificate

C.	OUR EXPERIENCE:
1.	Online application submission:
a.	The guidance isn’t great and some mandatory documents aren’t in their list.
b.	The application date is definitely the date you submit your online form and pay (as everyone on this site has confirmed). It actually says so on your submitted form if you download it. We submitted and paid on 9 December 2019 and our appointment was only today, 8 January 2020. All our documents were within 28 days of 9 December (not within 28 days of today).
c.	We thought some of the questions were not clear, e.g. they ask when the sponsor settled in the UK (if not born here), which we understood as “When did the sponsor get ILR”, but they mean citizenship, which you see only when you print out your online form. We submitted this incorrectly and luckily it didn’t seem to matter as our application was approved.
d.	I don’t think we calculated the number of years that the sponsor has been in the UK 100% correctly, but that was ok too.

2.	Uploading online documents
a.	We scanned and uploaded all our documents ourselves before our appointment and were finished by 1 January 2020. It was straightforward and you get the opportunity to review the uploaded documents
b.	We wanted to do a final review the evening before our appointment, but couldn’t get into our online documents anymore. 

3.	Sopra Steria appointment on 8 January 2020
a.	Both the applicant and sponsor were allowed in
b.	The lady scanned some applicant passport pages again: any that weren’t blank, the middle stitching page and the photo page. She then took his biometrics again.
c.	She didn’t even look at any of our other original documents, but showed us that Home Office had verified all our uploaded dcouments on 3 January.
d.	She was very friendly and made a stressful experience less stressful


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## Monique14 (Jun 30, 2014)

MND said:


> OUR EXPERIENCE
> Our SET(M) application for ILR was granted today. Here is our timeline, our documents and experience. Hopefully this is as helpful as other people’s experiences on this site have been to us. (I am not a visa advisor, I’m just someone who’s gone through the process).
> 
> A.	TIMELINE:
> ...


Hi MND, very helpful. Could you please let me know what did you submit under 'life events'? Many thanks


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## MND (Oct 3, 2014)

I submitted only our marriage certificate. We had a simple application with no children, so there was nothing else that was relevant here.


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## zakmuh (Aug 18, 2014)

MND said:


> .
> 
> A.	TIMELINE:
> 
> ...


Hi There,

Congrats 

Thank you very much for this detailed experience. Much useful! 

Just a quick one on fees and charges....please could you tell us:
3) How much is ILR application fee + how much extra for priority service?
4) Did you pay extra for this appointment?

Cheers


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## twee (Feb 1, 2014)

MND said:


> OUR EXPERIENCE
> Our SET(M) application for ILR was granted today. Here is our timeline, our documents and experience. Hopefully this is as helpful as other people’s experiences on this site have been to us. (I am not a visa advisor, I’m just someone who’s gone through the process).
> 
> 
> Congratulations on your successful application and thank you for sharing your experience with us.


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## MND (Oct 3, 2014)

We applied in December. The application fee was £2,389 plus £800 extra for super premium service plus £19.20 extra for the BRP. We had to pay another £125 for our appointment, because we wanted to go to the Sopra Steria office in our town for the sake of convenience. We had to wait a month (!!!!!!!!!) for an appointment. There was nothing else available earlier. We applied 9 December and the first available appointment was 8 January. Avoid December if you can!


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## twee (Feb 1, 2014)

MND said:


> We applied in December. The application fee was £2,389 plus £800 extra for super premium service plus £19.20 extra for the BRP. We had to pay another £125 for our appointment, because we wanted to go to the Sopra Steria office in our town for the sake of convenience. We had to wait a month (!!!!!!!!!) for an appointment. There was nothing else available earlier. We applied 9 December and the first available appointment was 8 January. Avoid December if you can!


Me again MND, 

Did you also have to pay a fee for NHS this time?


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## MND (Oct 3, 2014)

NHS fee is not relevant for Set (M).


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## twee (Feb 1, 2014)

MND said:


> NHS fee is not relevant for Set (M).


Oh great. Thank you.


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## zakmuh (Aug 18, 2014)

Thanks for your update

Cheers


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## brancie (Nov 20, 2014)

Congrats MND, and thanks for the helpful advice! I am about to submit my application early next week when I have all my documents in my hands. Question on uploading documents: Do you need to do all of this at once or can you upload some documents and come back later?


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## twee (Feb 1, 2014)

MND said:


> OUR EXPERIENCE
> 
> B.	OUR DOCUMENTS:
> •	Each item mentioned below was done as one pdf file, e.g. section 1 was 3 PDFs, section 4 was 4 PDFs, etc.
> ...


You mentioned in your first section of Mandatory documents that you used 3 pdfs

when you did the applicants passport, I'm assuming you bundled up each pdf page of the applicant's passport into one large pdf document, is that correct?
what size was your entire pdf document size for the applicant's passport?

Did your file names for each category show up as a full name?

I've read that each pdf bundle is named, but the middle section of my file's name is missing as you can only have a few letters or digits naming the file. Is there a way to give names to documents where you can see the entire name, or a way to distinguish documents names. I think it would be very confusing if parts of the file name were missing

For example:
Section One is *Proof of ID / Travel history.* so you make a folder with that name for all required documents to go into once you've done the pdf large bundles of each. Then within that Folder of *Proof of ID* you insert sub-folders of PDF document bundles. 
Bundle 1 PDF ... applicant's passport
Bundle 2 PDF ... sponsor's passport
Bundle 3 PDF ... BRP ... both sides

When I have to upload my Proof of ID/ Travel History for the visa application, I'd like the 3 PDF bundles to say what is in them... like "Applicant's passport"... not a shortened file name of the Applicant's passport. 

hope this makes sense. I've spent all day trying to learn how to do pdf's, combine several pdf's into one big document and how to arrange folders in the documents section of our computer... the shortened file naming has me stumped now though. I don't know how people have named their PDF documents in each section.

Thanks.


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## MND (Oct 3, 2014)

You can upload them one at a time and go back. We did section by section.
Good luck


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## ClaudUK (Jul 20, 2020)

Hi MND thanks for this amazing post, it is really helpful. Could please tell me what date your visa was issued in 2014, please?


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## MND (Oct 3, 2014)

ClaudUK said:


> Hi MND thanks for this amazing post, it is really helpful. Could please tell me what date your visa was issued in 2014, please?


Hi, I can't remember exactly, but my husband entered the UK within 7 days of getting his visa so it must have been between 7-13 December.


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## ClaudUK (Jul 20, 2020)

MND said:


> Hi, I can't remember exactly, but my husband entered the UK within 7 days of getting his visa so it must have been between 7-13 December.


Ok, thank you


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## adeel467 (Jan 8, 2015)

MND said:


> OUR EXPERIENCE
> Our SET(M) application for ILR was granted today. Here is our timeline, our documents and experience. Hopefully this is as helpful as other people’s experiences on this site have been to us. (I am not a visa advisor, I’m just someone who’s gone through the process).
> 
> A. TIMELINE:
> ...


Hi MND, can you please let me know what you put down in the application form for the question 'do you own or rent your home' I am the sponsor and own the property alone'? Thanks


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## fb2009 (Mar 10, 2016)

Congratulations and thank you for the detailed description. 
Can you please let me know 

Did you pay any NHS charges along with application fee you mentioned
Did you print all the documents you uploaded, to take for the appointment as well?

Waiting to hear from you


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## Crawford (Jan 23, 2011)

The Op has not been back for over 2 months.... but can tell you that NHS charge is not paid at Set(M) time


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## MND (Oct 3, 2014)

brancie said:


> Congrats MND, and thanks for the helpful advice! I am about to submit my application early next week when I have all my documents in my hands. Question on uploading documents: Do you need to do all of this at once or can you upload some documents and come back later?


You can upload and save and come back again later


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## MND (Oct 3, 2014)

fb2009 said:


> Congratulations and thank you for the detailed description.
> Can you please let me know
> 
> Did you pay any NHS charges along with application fee you mentioned
> ...


Thank you Crawford. NHS charges not payable again. We took printouts/originals of all our documents with us, but she only looked at the applicant's passport and scanned some pages in. She also took the applicant's biometrics again. She didn't look at anything else.


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## MND (Oct 3, 2014)

adeel467 said:


> Hi MND, can you please let me know what you put down in the application form for the question 'do you own or rent your home' I am the sponsor and own the property alone'? Thanks


We have the same scenario: home owned by sponsor only. We answered that the applicant also owns it.


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## fb2009 (Mar 10, 2016)

MND said:


> You can upload and save and come back again later


My question was, do I need to take prin outs of all the documents with the application?


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## MND (Oct 3, 2014)

fb2009 said:


> My question was, do I need to take prin outs of all the documents with the application?


We took printouts/originals of all our documents with us, but she only looked at the applicant's passport and scanned some pages in.


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## fb2009 (Mar 10, 2016)

MND said:


> We took printouts/originals of all our documents with us, but she only looked at the applicant's passport and scanned some pages in.


Thank you very much


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