Sponsoring someone for a work visa

[fellatthefirst]

I'm wondering if anyone can help. I have a lady that works for us from India. She has a visa but it is dependant on her husbands visa. He works for Ford. In summer 2019 their visa's run out and they have to go back to Indian for at least 1 year before they can re-aply.

I don't want to lose her so we want to sponsor her so her husband can then become dependant on her visa for the next 5 years.

Does anyone know what i need to do to become a sponsor? Does anyone have any experience of this? Is it an administration nightmare or pretty straight forward?

[edc]

It is a complex area but if you choose to do so you can find out all you need to know on the Home Office website. You don't say what the role is or what it pays but these are essential to see whether you have any chance of success. It is a points based system so essentially the higher the salary and harder to find the skillset the more chance you have. Even if you meet the minimum requirements you are not guaranteed to get a certificate of sponsorship.

[FunMeterAMG]

As suggested look on home office website, then search for a few good work based immigration solicitors to get advice. Anything immigration is a minefield and painful, costly process.

[davek_964]

I wonder if this will actually work - did her husband get a job with Ford when he was already here, or did he transfer to the UK with Ford?

I know nothing about this stuff, so this may not be true - but it's something I was told a couple of weeks ago by somebody who works for a Chinese family :

The husband has a visa, and came here as part of his job - however, their company make sure that their visa is slightly shorter than they'd need to be able to apply for residency - and this is intentional because otherwise, people transfer here and then never return to China. By doing this, the company is forcing their staff to return to China for at least a year.

Are you sure Ford didn't do something similar with the husbands visa? If so, the fact that his wife has one might still make it difficult for them to stay unless he finds another job.

[FiF]

Getting a tier 2 sponsorship licence is difficult and then the circumstances here make the issue even more difficult. The big problem is that V&I may see this as a manoeuvre to try and qualify for indefinite leave to remain through a back door. They get really snippy about this. Certainly with tier 4 sponsorship you have to be really careful if there is any suspicion of this and you can have your licence revoked, which for an educational establishment would be disaster.

Stating obvious but OP really needs to consult with experts on this and recognise the recording and reporting requirements which will be imposed. An expert in the field should be able to assess the full facts and advise if this is worth pursuing.

[edc]

Don't worry about the Indefinite Leave to Remain status. If somebody comes under a Tier 2 Intra Company visa then this time will not qualify for ILR purpose anyway. The Tier 2 General will. Both can be renewed so you don't have to go back.

Also be aware that if you do manage to successfully sponsor somebody that if you want to renew them and they were at the minimum salary level at original application, you are highly likely to have to give a salary increase just to get a renewal. Also if you are new to all this I'd give yourself 6 months from starting to visa landed.

[edc]

You will probably also find that as your employee is on a spouse visa that she will have to leave the country anyway to apply for the visa and you will technically have to terminate her employment when she leaves.

[fellatthefirst]

Thanks for the replies. The job is a software developer and the salary is £45k. We really don't want to lose her as she has been with us now for over 1 year and she is good. Since her time here we have interviewed around 15-20 people and employed another 2 who turned out to be not good enough so we let them go. Recruiting "good" software developers is not easy. Does anyone actually have any first hand experience of this or could anyone recommend a good immigration solicitor?

[edc]

I have first hand experience but can refer you to a good immigration adviser who advised on my applications. PM me if you want more info or an intro.

[QuartzDad]

When I worked for a global IT company we used Fragomens for all our visa work, probably brought in several hundred a year from India plus about the same again from elsewhere.

[carboy2017]

Yes you can do it as i work in IT and many non EU nationals work for us on Tier 2 visas

Basically you need to do a market test and show the HO that you tried and could not recruit anyone locally which I think you already did with 2 bad hires and unsuccesful applicants

Then you would need to apply for a Certificate of Sponsorship (CoS) and once HO approves it she can apply for the Tier 2 visa and no she does not have to go back to India to apply,PM me if you want the solicitors details ,also the salary of 45k is quite sufficient for this

Hope this helps

fellatthefirst said:

Thanks for the replies. The job is a software developer and the salary is £45k. We really don't want to lose her as she has been with us now for over 1 year and she is good. Since her time here we have interviewed around 15-20 people and employed another 2 who turned out to be not good enough so we let them go. Recruiting "good" software developers is not easy. Does anyone actually have any first hand experience of this or could anyone recommend a good immigration solicitor?