By Eylem Kara
Our immigration team was approached by our client’s daughter, who expressed her wish to sponsor her elderly mother to obtain leave to remain in the UK. Our client, a regular and law abiding UK visitor, was unable to return to her home Country at the end of her visit due to a deterioration in health.
After conducting a detailed consultation, our immigration lawyers advised our client that we can submit an application on her behalf for leave to remain in the UK under compelling and compassionate circumstances as a dependant parent of her daughter settled in the UK, as well as on the basis of her private and family life in the UK. We informed our client that although this is a complex matter, we had experience and knowledge in these applications and a high success rate.
The most important factor for all immigration related applications, such as extensions, visas, entry clearance, settlement, nationality, is to provide evidence of what is being said in the application. Therefore, we discussed this with our client and worked with her closely throughout the process to enable her to provide the documents we requested from her.
Background
Our client entered the UK with a standard visitors visa to visit her only child, who is a British national settled in the UK living with her own children and partner. Our client had been visiting the UK every year and genuinely intended to return to her Country of nationality before the end of her visit. However, during her visit, our client’s health severely worsened and it became apparent that she can no longer continue to live alone, and therefore expressed her wish and need to live with her daughter. Our client did not have any other family member as her spouse had passed away years ago and she only had one child. Although our client did have siblings in her Country of nationality, they all lived their own independent lives.
Our immigration team immediately started working on the matter and provided our client with details of the application process, advising on the requirements and evidence required. Our client was also informed from the outset that there was a high chance that the matter would have to be appealed, before having a successful outcome.
This application was predictably refused as Home Office rarely applies the discretion vested in them for such matters, or conducts the test for exceptional, compelling and compassionate circumstances in the correct manner. Our client did not meet the Immigration Rules for leave to remain on the basis of family life. We therefore relied on the grounds of Article 8 of European Human Rights Charter, with emphasis on the right to private and family life and addressed that there were compassionate circumstances in our client’s case. Nevertheless, our expert immigration team had prepared a remarkable application to leave the Tribunal with little to comment on.
Although strong evidence of our client’s medical, emotional and financial needs as well as evidence of the best interest of her two grandchildren were provided, the Home Office refused our client’s application on the basis that the Immigration Rules were not met and that there were no exceptional circumstances.
During our consultation after the Home Office decision was received, it was informed to our client that the refusal should be challenged by way of lodging an appeal and having her matter heard by an Immigration Judge. Considering our client’s Immigration history and circumstances, we believed that she had a possibility of succeeding, provided she was able to support the appeal with strong evidence.
If you have been refused Leave to Remain application and wish to discuss your options with our top immigration solicitors, call us on 020 3372 5125 or fill in our enquiry form.
