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I am applying for an Australian dependent visa in 2019, and I have a doubt whether I have overstayed in the UK in 2014, I applied for entrepreneur visa within 28 days of grace period, but the same was refused in Feb 2015.

Then I appealed against the decision but since it was taking longer than expected we decided to withdraw appeal and left UK in july 2015 voluntarily, I was told no ban has been applied and when I applied for UK tourist visa in october 2015 my visa was refused on grounds of financial grounds not on any previous ban or anything.

so question is did I overstay in the UK? what should I mention on my Australian Visa now, I am really confused and UK immigration department doesn't give any clear info, and different lawyers suggest different answers. I am deeply troubled so I will be grateful if anybody could help me. My wife is in Australia and I need to move in with her as soon as possible

Q'mary
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  • Your enterpreneur visa application was denied in February 2015 and you left the UK in July 2015, right? So you had a visa (from 2014?) and you stayed in the UK (from 2014, which month?) until July 2015? How long was the visa for? It's not hard to calculate how many months you stayed. If you stayed 11 months and the visa was for 10, you overstayed ;) – ypercubeᵀᴹ Mar 04 '19 at 11:10
  • @ypercubeᵀᴹ OP said the denial was appealed so it depends on whether staying in the UK while the appeal was underway was valid or not. – mkennedy Mar 04 '19 at 17:40

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You wrote:

I am really confused and UK immigration department doesn't give any clear info, and different lawyers suggest different answers.

If different trained immigration attorneys are providing different answers, any answer from the random strangers on the internet like travel.exchange will only be an additional opinion, non definitive.

That said I would answer yes to the question. My reason for that being that immediately your extension application was denied, you became an overstay. Note that the previous 28 day (now changed to 14 day etc) rule overlooked an applicants overstay, it didn’t mean the overstay did not happen. Since your appeal was withdrawn before adjudication, the overstay status stands.

My conclusion is based on logic and inference, not hard codified rules. That said I am only just another random guy lurking on the internet.

Augustine of Hippo
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  • Thanks for sharing, I applied within 9 days so 14 day or 28 days doesn't matter and it was before 2015 so I think it falls under 28 days rule. I never had the intention to overstay, I only realised recently after reviewing my history and understanding the fact that if it will have adverse effect on my application if i do not disclose this information, my immigration lawyers at that time never advised the same, things could have so different but some greedy lawyers never advised this, all they wanted us to do is appeal and appeal again. What a shame UK government dont have a fair helpline – Q'mary Mar 04 '19 at 20:49
  • @Q'mary Unfortunately some lawyers are just in business for the client fees. They don’t really care about the client. – Augustine of Hippo Mar 04 '19 at 21:05