swtcorrado

We need some serious advice here. Here's the story so far.

We moved to the UK (from USA) in February 2010. I'm a UK citizen and my children (3) all hold UK passports. My wife is a US citizen. We have been married 11 years.

When we moved originally my wife was granted a "settlement spouse/CP(KOL req)" visa from 06/01/10 to 06/04/12. We left in February and had a connect flight through Dublin Ireland. The issue we are facing is when we went through Dublin imigration they did not validate her passport. We had no idea at the time and went on our merry way. Later that year my wife's sister got married and we attended. Upon returning through Heathrow the immigration officer told us that her visa had not been validated/stamped and asked how she was in the country before. She explained what happened the first time and he stamped her passport November 19th 2010 and told her the visa is now valid from that date. We assumed the 2 years started at this point (as informed by the immigration officer).

We are now approaching 2yrs, my wife has passed her KOL and we thought the ILR was a forgone conclusion. I recently looked at her visa while filling out the ILR paper work and noticed it had an expiration date ( I hadn't really thought about it, just made a mental note for November and got on with life) so I began reading up on it and now I'm really worried. It seems the Immigration officer was misinformed and now the visa is 3 days from being 6 months expired (maybe? I'm still not sure).

We are settled here, I have a pretty good job, my children are happy and have lots of friends. I see this as turning our whole life upside down.

What should we do? Any and all advice is greatly appreciated.

Kind regards,

Daniel

swtcorrado

Just found out during some research that our original application of "indefinite leave to enter" would have allowed us to apply for the ILR straight away once my wife completed the KOL. Oh the irony. Just thought I would share.

roaringmouse

You really need to talk to an OISC registered immigration solicitor. A better forum you could try on is UK Resident - there are some immigration solicitors on there. Post in the spouse/partner/family visas forum on that site. However I expect you need to be prepared to pay for this to be looked at properly - just do it soon!

swtcorrado

Thanks for the reply, we have an appointment tomorrow morning. I just wanted to be armed with as much information as possible. I'm going to take your advice and post in that forum as well.

If anyone else has any info please post!! Ideally if you've been though this before!

Thank you!

roaringmouse

With an OISC registered immigration solicitor you mean?

swtcorrado

To be honest I have no idea if they are registered. My wife knows a Russian lady from the kids school who immigrate and that's the lawyer they used. Thought it would be a good place to start.

roaringmouse

I've noticed your thread on that other forum - I hope you're considering what the immigration solicitors on there have told you, as the ones who posted in reply to you are very knowledgeable with plenty of experience.