UK Tier 2 Visa Question

ExpatPumpkin

Our visa will expire on Nov. 1st next year, and I don't think DH will be renewing his contract...  So we're planning on going home between then and Christmas. 

How long can we stay after the visa expires to pack up and leave?  Will they give us 30 days, etc.?  We're thinking of leaving on Nov. 20th, so we'd just need an additional 19 days...

One catch is that I may need to go to the States for a business trip during that time period.  Will I have a hard time coming back in?  Ideally, I could just enter as a tourist with the intention of leaving on the 20th.  But would the recently expired visa be a problem?

TIA

amwallace

I talked to my DH because this is the same visa we have. We don't know for sure, but what we came up with was this: if you overstay on your visa and the UK government finds out, you will have lots and lots of trouble in the future if you want to come back to the UK even just to vacation. If you overstay, they are likely to not let you into the country again. That being said, they do not check your passport on the way out, so will not "know" if you've overstayed (although they can look at the stamps and dates in your passport to check it). We think you can either leave the country and re-enter on a tourist visa (but we're unsure how long you need to stay out of the country) or you can apply for an extension. 

Tofumonkey

amwallace:

I talked to my DH because this is the same visa we have. We don't know for sure, but what we came up with was this: if you overstay on your visa and the UK government finds out, you will have lots and lots of trouble in the future if you want to come back to the UK even just to vacation. If you overstay, they are likely to not let you into the country again. That being said, they do not check your passport on the way out, so will not "know" if you've overstayed (although they can look at the stamps and dates in your passport to check it). We think you can either leave the country and re-enter on a tourist visa (but we're unsure how long you need to stay out of the country) or you can apply for an extension. 

Even though they don't have exit passport controls, they know when you go and when you stay because they get their info based off of flight, train and ship manifests. Pretty easy to do when you're on an island.

The bottom line is that you need to either leave or be gone by the date that your visa expires. However, as you plan on staying a tad bit longer (not the wisest thing to do ) I would suggest that on the date that your visas expire you fly to Dublin and spend the weekend there. Then, fly back to the UK via Plymouth and enter there on tourist visas, as your Tier 2 visa would have expired. This will activate your general non-visa national travel rights. However, you cannot activate those while on a Tier 2 visa.

You also cannot activate those rights while in the UK immediately after your visa has expired. You need to actually leave the country to activate those rights. Otherwise, you will be classed as overstayed, and you will certainly have trouble when ever trying to return - not only in the UK. If you apply for another visa elsewhere you will have to claim that you overstayed in the UK. Ouch.

laurimi

I would say leave for the States by the time your visa expires. 

I was here on a student work visa years ago, then my company applied to sponsor me, it was denied. About 6 weeks later I tried to re-enter the country as a tourist. My plan was to stay with my then boyfriend while we sorted things out, I had a return flight booked to the states. After A LOT of questioning they refused me entry. They brought my boyfriend in as well and questioned him. They let me stay in the country for 36 hours but held onto my passport. They took my return flight to put me on a flight back to the states.

Obviously this was circumstantial as I was trying to stay for a few months, but I would be worried they wouldn't allow you back in or would only give you leave for a day or 2, which I can imagine would be manic trying to sort things out.

However if you do do this, I would bring as much proof as you can that you plan to settle in the states. If you have job offers,  mortgage/rental agreements, return flights etc. 

Tofumonkey

Ahem. Flights from Dublin to Plymouth have very little border control. Common travel area and all that, American on the manifest. No reason to call in the suits.

laurimi

Just a thought/ question you may be able to answer Tofu... any time I've flown from Ireland to the UK, they never even look at my passport. Sometimes you just walk through a fast lane, other times they've collected all the boarding passes at immigration. 

In this case, if that happened and you didn't have the UK stamp (that usually gives you the 6 month visitor visa), would you still be considered to be a visitor just automatically?  

Tofumonkey

Yep. I've done it myself. You should request a stamp or inspection, but people rarely ever do.

I dealt with a case about a year ago in which this happened to someone, but they needed the stamp in their passport for an immigration issue, so we had to go through a mess trying to get the UKBA to "back stamp" their passport. It's possible, but a massive pain and not really worth it. Just keep your air ticket and boarding pass as evidence that you took the flight.

That's how I learned that they base their exit controls off of travel manifests.

ExpatPumpkin

Wow!  Thanks for the info!  I do have additional questions:

1 - How much time/effort/money goes into renewing the Tier 2?  If it's not a huge deal, we may renew and stay until Christmas.  But if it's very expensive for the company, we wouldn't want to do that...

2 - Could we fly to the States right when the visa expires and then return as tourists a few days later?

3 - Is the Dublin plan a "sure thing" or should we be prepared for problems?

The deal is that our flat lease will expire on Nov. 23rd and we'd like to take the Queen Mary 2 back.  There's kennel space on the Nov. 20th departure for our dog, and this would be a once in a a lifetime opportunity for us... We'd use Nov. to get our affairs in order and pack, etc.   If we can prove a paid for cruise departure upon entry at the beginning of Nov., will that help our case if we run into deep questioning?

Thanks!

Tofumonkey

1. Very little money for the company. ?170 for the certificate. A bit pricier for you: ?550 for the application fee. It's not difficult to do a renewal and would take about 1 hour of effort.

2. I would not advise that you return as tourists from a non common travel area ( such as Ireland, etc. ) so soon after the expiry of your visa. You may have a hard time getting back in, because you're not really going to be here as tourists, and they're not dumb. The most common nationality overstaying their visas here are Americans, and the UKBA doesn't take kindly to it.

3. You're more or less planning to overstay your visa, so I would expect problems at any point. It would be much wiser to either do what it is that you want to do before your visa expires and then leave, or to leave with all of your things and move back to the States and then come back to tour around. Or just extend your visa. Easy peasy.

Your receipt for a departure ticket would be helpful if there were found to be any problems. The fact that you also won't be working for your employer any more would cause a problem for your employer to re-sponsor you because they have a duty to report you to the UKBA when you leave their employment. So they probably won't be willing to re-sponsor you and, if they do and you renew your visa and then they turn around and cancel your visa you will only have 60 days to either find new employment or leave the UK. This might work for you.

The options that you have (that I can see) are:

1. extend your Tier 2 visas. This is the safest option, if your company is willing to do it.

2. Fly to a common travel area and then back after the expiry of your Tier 2 visas to re-trigger your American non-visa national tourist visas.

3. Pack up and move back to the States before your visa expires.

4. Apply for FLR(O) for a short period of further leave to remain.