ILR application successful | Happy to answer questions
Got ILR approved earlier this week for me and my partner! Happy to answer questions while details are still fresh in my mind.
Timeline:
- SWV decision date from the visa sticker - May 12, 2021
- Application submitted via gov.uk - April 14, 2026
- Biometric appointment - April 15, 2026
- Approval email - April 15, 2026
I’ve paid 500 GBP/pp for priority processing to get decision in 5 days, but shockingly got an email from Atlas just 7 hours after leaving TLS Contact centre.
Immigration status was updated to “Settled” in the eVisa straight away.
Few things, which were not entirely clear and what I did:
- Cohabitation proof: There is no clear guidance about how many documents HO wants, but I’ve ended up submitting a mix of council tax bills for the last 2 years, few joint bank account statements, mortgage statements and few bills in sole name for us both for the same month. Intervals between dates on the documents were 3-4 months
- PDFs from online banking were ok, I didn’t bother going to a branch to get stamped statements
- Previous passport scans: I’ve scanned all passport pages, including blank ones, after reading somewhere that it’s recommended. However, in the TLS centre they are always scanning your current passport and I’ve noticed that employee scanned only pages with stamps or visas + personal info page. So, scanning blanks in the olds passport was probably excessive
- Availability of the dates for biometric appointment was good in London: appointment with documents scanning service were available even next day and free appointments from next week. If you pay 50 GBP/pp for documents scanning service, you are still allowed to upload everything online in advance. TLS is just artificially limiting number of completely free appointments to make more money
- It’s possible to pay visa fee using Amex, so you can easily hit welcome bonus for one of their reward cards, if you want to, and then cancel it after transferring out