This is my experience applying for an ILR visa in person at the Glasgow office on Brand Street.

Before I had even taken my Life in the UK test, I called the Glasgow office (0141 555 1258) and asked if I could make an appointment. They seemed okay with the fact that I'd just the appointment and not the actual pass for the test. Due to some readings I'd read online about it, I made the appointment for a week after the test. I was told to show up between 8:45 and 11:30. I received a booking number and that was it, I was scheduled for a Friday appointment.

As we're living in North Scotland, we decided to drive down to my in-laws, who live in Fife, on the Thursday before. There was debate about taking a train in vs. driving. There's a subway stop not too far and there didn't seem to be any parking nearby. However, we decided to drive, get there early and hope there was parking on the street.

It worked out in our favour. There was parking on the street, right across the street from the building. (There were even a few spots still there when we came out as well!) You can't miss this building; it's three separate buildings of light brown brick with grey metal windows and roofing surrounded by a black rail fence. There are three silver signs with the Home Office logo on it saying Festival Court 1, 2 and 3.

As we were there at 8:30, we stood outside with a few other folks in front of the Festival Court 3 sign. Then at 8:45 a man called out for all visa applicants. We went through the gate and stood in line outside a small portable building where someone checked our passports and asked for our booking number. (I was glad my husband was there, as the man had a very thick Glaswegian accent and I had trouble understanding him!) Then we were told to go to Building 1, the last one on our right.

Once inside, you showed the man behind the counter your passports and turned over your cell phones. We actually had our keys taken from us as well, but I don't know if that was standard or not as none of the signs said anything about this. They gave us a little slip with a number on it (ours was 5), which was our queue number and also we're to keep it to get our phone back afterwards. Then there was an airport style metal detector you had to go through. Afterwards you went through to the waiting area. It was 8:50 when we sat down.

The waiting area was large, but not comfortable... just plain metal chairs. There was a coffee, soda and snack machine (but no change machine). There was also a water fountain and a single unisex toilet.

To the one side there were two large windows (like a bank tellers) with two chairs in front of them. This is the "sift" window where they go through your stuff to determine if you've enough evidence to apply before they take your money from you.

When we were called up, the guy went through our paperwork and said he was going to take out what he thought was necessary and he'd call us back up. (He did ask us if it was two years of martial bliss... by the way...I'm sure it was a joke though.) 10 minutes later we were called up and he'd removed 19 of our 31 documents and put them in another folder along with our passports and application.

Then we were called to the teller around the corner to pay, which we did with our credit card. (Chip and PIN) A receipt was stapled to our application and we were again asked to take a seat.

At 9:50 we were called to another window around the corner where another person went through the folder that was put together for us. He made copies of some documents and then sat back down and said it would be about 40 minutes and my ILR vignette would be put into my passport for me.

He went over a few things with us: My ILR is good from here on out, I'm now entitled to public funds. However, if I leave for more than 2 years without returning to the UK, I'll lose my ILR and need to reapply for a "returning resident" visa.

Also, my passport expires in 2014, but my ILR is still good and still allows me to remain in the UK. He said it would cost (at the moment!) £160 to transfer the vignette to my new passport (or £500 in person). He strongly recommended that I do this if I wanted to travel, saying that I would most likely get hassled travelling with my old passport (with the still good ILR visa) and my new passport. He went on to say that the first time I did it, I would most likely get a warning stamp on my new passport from the borders and immigrations guy and probably wouldn't be let away with it again. Furthermore, travelling from countries like Pakistan and India, there have been known cases where people travelling like that were not allowed on the plane to the UK until phone calls to the Home Office were made, etc.

I don't know if he was just pushing for me to apply for my citizenship or not, but it did seem a lot easier to just get a UK passport. I can apply exactly one year from the date of my ILR.

About 25-30 minutes later we were called back up to another window where another person went over again what the first guy said about what my ILR entitles me to and the rules around it. He also stressed that I should apply for my citizenship, as the cost of the ILR transfer would most likely go up in the next seven years when my US passport expires.

After that we went back to the desk where we handed in our phone, gave the man our number, got our keys and phone back and went home. The whole thing took just over an hour and a half!

Celeste F.
Aberdeen, Scotland

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