Mr Xis a Skilled Chef. He had been sponsored to work in an established Restaurant in West London. After only a year or so in the UK, his sponsor made the decision to liquidate the existing business and run the restaurant through a new limited company. This meant that Mr X could no longer continue to work for the restaurant as, under the conditions of his visa, he could only work for his sponsoring employer. Mr X’s visa was now subject to 60 day curtailment, at any time.
Fortunately, Mr X’s sponsor made contact with A Y & J Solicitors to get advice on the situation. A Y & J Solicitors advised the sponsor to surrender the old licence and to apply for a new licence straight away, in order to continue to sponsor and employ Mr X.
Mr X’s sponsor approached A Y & J Solicitors more than a month after liquidating his company. This meant that the surrender/new licence application was made out-of-time (more than 28 days after the liquidation) and the sponsor could not “transfer” sponsorship from the old licence to the new.
One the new licence was granted, Mr X’s sponsor, therefore, needed to assign a new Certificate of Sponsorship (CoS) and Mr X would need a Change of Employment application to start work for the new sponsor.
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A Y & J Solicitors’ team of UK immigration lawyers guided and supported Mr X end-to-end from gathering and checking the correct documentation for the visa, preparing the online form and collating the relevant information required for the Skilled Worker application.
Mr X’s sponsor initially assigned his CoS for 4 years, which was sufficient time for Mr X to apply for Indefinite Leave to Remain, without a further extension.
With meticulous attention to detail, A Y &J Solicitors identified that Mr X’s dependants had travelled to the UK a year after he did, which meant that the dependants would not qualify for Indefinite Leave to Remain (following a single extension) if he was now granted only 4 years’ leave to remain.
A Y & J Solicitors provided future facing advice to the applicant and sponsor on the relative costs and merits of Mr X applying for a 5 year visa. Taking dependant fees into account, the benefits of sponsoring one additional year (under £1,000) much outweighed the potential financial impact of a second leave to remain application for the dependants in 4 years’ time(which would be required to complete their full5 year qualifying period for Indefinite Leave to Remain, and would cost thousands of pounds).
A Y & J took instructions to assist the sponsor with amending the CoS end date and also ensured that the 1 year top up payments were made in line with the rules, to avoid any impact or disruption to the visa application.
The Result
Mr X’s 5 year visa application was approved well within the stated service standards and Mr X can now continue to work for his employer as a specialist chef.
Mr X is looking forward to working with us again with his family’s dependant extensions and on indefinite leave to remain in the future.
