Where an applicant applies for settlement under any of the categories – Appendix Family Life, Appendix Private Life, Appendix Innovator, Appendix FM, and Appendix Hong Kong British National (Overseas) and the Home Office deems that they do not meet the requirements to be granted settlement, they may instead be granted further permission to stay on their current route, provided they meet the suitability and eligibility requirements of that route.
The purpose of this is to protect the status of the applicant, in the event, their settlement application is refused, the applicant is not left without status in the UK. They have further permission to stay on their current route.
Process for granting permission to stay after an application for settlement
If it is deemed that the applicant does not meet the requirements for settlement, the Home Office will consider whether they meet the suitability and eligibility requirements to be granted further permission to stay on their current route. If it is decided that the applicant does meet these requirements for permission to stay, the Home Office can vary their application from an application for settlement to one for permission to stay. This will be subject to the payment of the Immigration Health Surcharge ‘IHS’, unless exemption or fee waiver applies.
The instance, where an exemption applies is where a child is in local authority care. Where there is no IHS payable for the permission to stay application, the applicant is granted permission to stay.
Where IHS applies, the Home Office will write to the applicant informing them that:
- their application for settlement is varied to permission to stay,
- they must pay the IHS within 14 days unless they are on a private or family route in which case they can apply for a fee waiver within 14 days,
- failure to pay HIS will result in their application being treated as invalid, and
- they will not receive a refund of their settlement fee.
Once the IHS has been paid and if the applicant meets all eligibility and suitability requirements, permission to stay is granted. The Home Office is required to explain on the decision notice granting permission to stay the reason or reasons the applicant did not qualify for settlement and that they have instead been granted permission to stay.
If an application has been made for a fee waiver, the Home Office must wait for the fee waiver application to be decided before considering the application for permission to stay. If the application for a fee waiver is successful, the applicant is granted permission to stay.
If the application for a fee waiver is not successful, the applicant will have a further 14 days to pay the Immigration Health Surcharge using. If the IHS has not been paid (or, where relevant, a fee waiver has not been applied for or has not been successful) the application will be rejected as invalid for non-payment of the HIS.
Where an application is rejected after this process, the settlement application fee is not refunded as the applicant has had a full consideration of their settlement application.