The TOEIC scandal enabled the Home Office to deport thousands of Students and non-Students; many simply victims of the system. While some of those affected have now left the UK having moved on with their lives, a good number of past TOEIC students are still having their applications refused due to allegations of an intention to deceive the Home Office.
In this case, Mrs V, a non-EEA national, came to the UK to pursue her dream of studying in the United Kingdom. She entered the UK around 11 years ago with her husband, who, at the time, was her dependant. She studied for several years, graduated with a master’s degree in business, and decided to implement her skills and ideas to establish a new business venture.
Due to delays in obtaining her master’s degree, she had no choice but to sit an English language test solely to be able to vary her Tier 4 Student Visa to a Tier 1 (Entrepreneur) Visa. The only earliest English language exam at the time was TOEIC; the details of which provided in her Tier 1 (Entrepreneur) application. The application was approved. However, a couple of years later, Mrs V was asked to attend an interview with the Home Office to establish whether she appointed a proxy to sit her TOEIC test. Following the interview, Mrs V received more queries from the Home Office.
Mrs V approached A Y & J to assist with her Tier 1 (Entrepreneur) Extension application. An extension application was put forward, and while pending, she reached her ten years continuous lawful residence. Mrs V then varied her extension application to an application for settlement. A few months later, she was notified that her long residence application had been refused due to TOEIC concerns.
Despite being interviewed many years back regarding the same issue, following the receipt of her Subject Access Request from the Home Office, we learnt that the Home Office had recorded on her file a note to the effect that she must be refused when applying for leave. It was extremely useful to know that the Home Office had already planned to refuse her leave, though no action was taken when the interview took place.
We firstly lodged an appeal with the First Tier Tribunal, and subsequently received a hearing date. On the day of the hearing, the Respondent requested an adjournment to adduce more evidence. The subsequent hearing was also adjourned until after three attempts had been made by the Respondent to produce a piece of evidence, for which they had been searching over two years since the refusal of Mrs V settlement application.
The appeal preparation, the evidence put forward before the First Tier Tribunal Judge along with the assistance of an experienced barrister meant that A Y & J succeeded in this 2-year battle and secured the long-awaited settlement visa.
Once again, you need to know where to look for the evidence that will benefit your client and how you can use it in his/her favour. Robust preparation backed by experience and passion will always increase the chance of your success in an appeal matter. For Mrs V, the worries of her status are now over, and she can look forward to a normal life with her British husband and son.
If you are reading this review then you must need legal support like we did a year ago and you are confused don’t know who to trust or who to select as this side of life was completely unknown to you!! So please read our story as it might guide you to the right direction. We had an ILR rejection back in Aug,2016 and it was one of the nasty allegation which is hard to get rid off. We were in tears, needed legal support and we didn’t know any solicitors. So based on reviews we selected A Y & J solicitors to pursue our AR and then Judicial Review. I still remember the day of our refusal I left an enquiry on their webpage and the next day Diana called me and spent over 45 minutes to take our case history and booked us to see Yash. At that point she won my heart as by then we already experienced that most solicitors don’t even spend a minute over the phone unless and until you pay any consultation fee. Yash was very open and honest. He showed us the true picture and let us decide to pursue JR or not! So finally from JR submission until we received the outcome it took about a year. Throughout these time at every stage they kept us well informed at all times. Waleed took over our case half way through. He is a very genuine and efficient person. We never ever had to remind him about anything as he was always ahead of the game. We have gone through an awful journey where sometimes we felt to give up but the team helped us to gain our trust back. Team members are very knowledgeable, caring, trustworthy and friendly. Throughout the time there was excellent communication, they kept us informed as soon as they had an update. The best part was they knew our case in details and never missed a single point. I have seen many people during our JR journey who had a bad experience from their solicitor and kept on complaining about them. Honestly speaking We can’t think of a single moment where they didn’t meet our expectations! Thank you guys for everything you did for us. You probably won’t have any idea how grateful we are to you. Keep up the good work. Wish you all the best. We will definitely refer them to people who need legal support. We were truly touched by your service. P.S. You can trust them closing your eyes!!!!