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24 Oct How will the new rules affect your visa?

Posted on October 24, 2014 in Investing in the UK, Visa Refusals by
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On 16 Oct 2014, the Home Office published a new Statement of Changes, which will have a significant impact on the current immigration rules as explained in the paragraphs below.

As of 20 October 2014, the appeal’s procedure for Tier 4 applications, which have been refused in country, will be simplified as appellants will only be allowed to submit an administrative review.  This means that the applicants will need to file a written request to the Home Office to review the decision. If one can shown that the caseworker made an error, the decision will be corrected within 28 days instead of the standard 12 weeks for a postal application.

Significantly, as of 6 November 2014, the minimum investment threshold for the Tier 1 (Investor) route will be raised from £1 million to £2 million. The type of investments will also be restricted to UK Government bonds, share capital or loan capital in active and trading UK registered companies.

As a result, investments made into cash deposits or towards the unmortgage part of a property up to a maximum of £250000 will no longer be counted. In addition, the loan route whereby a Tier 1 investor could rely on cash funds in the form a loan from a UK financial institution will no longer be an option.

However, on the plus side, the investor will no longer be required to “top-up” the balance if the value of the shares or bonds were to fall.

Finally, Tier 2 (Intra-Company Transfer) and Tier 2 (General) applicants will be subjected to a genuine vacancy assessment. This empowers ECO and caseworkers to refuse applications where there are reasonable grounds to believe that (1) the job described by the sponsor does not genuinely exist or (2) the applicant is not qualified to do the job.

If you have any questions with regard to your immigration matters or would like to make an application, please contact us +44 20 3384 3075, or via email [email protected].

The content of this article is for general use and information only. Since each case should be prepared on its own merit and in light of the constant amendments to the Immigration Rules, it is important to note that the information provided must not be relied upon unless Migra & Co has either given written consent or has been officially engaged in relation to a specific immigration matter. As a result, Migra & Co will take no responsibility for any damage, cost or loss resulting from relying on the information contained in this article, blog and website.