Immigration Applications and Appeals
Immigration Application
The work will involve;
Discussing your circumstances in detail and confirming whether this is the most appropriate application for you to make and what other options may be available to you.
Giving you advice about the requirements of the Immigration Rules and whether you meet the criteria.
Taking instructions and telephone attendance in respect to your case. The estimated time in taking instructions and telephone attendance will depend on the nature of the case its complexity. We would normally estimate that taking thorough instructions will take between 1-2 hours.
In some cases you may not fulfil certain criteria, this may be overcome by obtaining further supporting documentation which may help assist with an application outside the rules.
On average this may take 40 hours. Significantly, we may need to instruct an expert such as a Social Worker or Medical Practitioner depending on the nature and complexity of the case. The fees for such experts be a disbursement for professional fees and will be borne by the client.
Considering the supporting evidence you have provided, which we anticipate will take 3 to 5 hours.
Where necessary, helping you obtain further evidence (such as medical records and bank statements), including taking statements of any witnesses; preparing your application and submitting it on your behalf, which we anticipate will take 5 – 10 hours;
Attendance at a Home Office interview: if the Home Office ask you to attend an interview, we will give you clear advice (and discuss the possibility of us attending with you) at the appropriate time. This could be between 5 and 6 hours of work.
Please Note: The said hours stated above is an estimate. However; the amount of hours depends on the number of documents, whether they need to be translated, whether there is any information or document(s) missing and how long it will take to obtain the missing document(s) and/or information.
We will give you advice about the outcome of the application and any further steps you need to take.
Appeals
We initiate an appeal by discussing the Home Office of or Entry Clearance refusal with the client in question. We then advise on the next course of action which will entail appealing the adverse decision.
We subsequently draft grounds of appeal in respect to an adverse decision and complete the requisite tribunal appeal forms. Once this has been concluded we lodge the appeal with tribunal or upper tribunal respectively. Drafting grounds and completing tribunal appeal forms can take between 3-5 hours. We then discuss the gathering of key of evidence with the appellant and sponsor in line with preparing the bundle to be used on the day of the hearing. We get the documents in a sequenced and chronological order. This may take up to 5-6 hours depending on the complexity of the case and the volume of documents involved in the case.
Additionally, if there is any further supplementary documentation that could help assist the appeal such as an expert report we would with the consent of the client instruct an expert witness. This will entail drafting instructions for the expert witness which will be carried out by the Supervision. Expert witness instructions can take up 2-3 hours to conclude and agree with the expert instructed.
Drafting Appeal Witness statements involves a lot of detail and may take up to 10-20 hours to complete depending on the complexity of the case in question and significantly the number of witnesses to attend the tribunal hearing. Bundles are produced electronically and compressed into a PDF file to be used for the hearing. This may take up 3 to 4 hours depending on the volume of the documents involved. We then instruct counsel in the matter which entails drafting a brief to counsel setting out the case to the barrister to attend the tribunal hearing. This can take up to 2-3 hours depending on the complexity of the case.
Miss Nelson, the Head of Practice supervises all Appeal work and ensures that the trainee solicitor and paralegals work from initiating the appeal grounds and submission of the appeal. Significantly, we work on the appeal preparation which involves document assessment.