Urgent visa help in Edinburgh

By Alexander Boyd Immigration solicitor · Alexander Boyd Solicitors, Edinburgh

Your renewal is due in ten days and the evidence isn't ready. Or a Home Office letter dropped through the door with a short reply window. Or your appeal deadline is Thursday and you've only just opened the envelope. Whatever has brought you here, the clock is the bit you can't fix on your own.

Here's what we do. Book through our calendar and you'll usually be sitting with a qualified immigration solicitor within 24 hours. £175 including VAT, 30 minutes, at our Edinburgh office or by video. After the call you'll know which option fits your case, what the next step costs as a fixed fee, and how to act before the deadline lands. The rest of this page is so you arrive at that meeting with the right things in hand.

Step one: find your deadline

This sounds obvious. It isn't. The date you need isn't always where you'd expect.

On a decision letter

The deadline line is near the back. It usually reads "you must apply by..." or "your leave to remain ends on...". That date is the one that counts.

On a Home Office further information request

The deadline is on page one, often phrased as "you have until [date] to provide the following". Calendar days, not working days, unless the letter says otherwise.

On a refusal letter

The appeal deadline sits in the rights-of-appeal section near the back. In-country appeals are usually 14 calendar days from the date the decision was sent. Out-of-country, 28 calendar days. Asylum has its own clock.

On a BRP

The expiry date is printed on the card, but it isn't always the same as your leave-to-remain expiry. Always cross-check the BRP against the most recent Home Office decision letter.

On a sponsor licence revocation notice

The 60-day grace period starts on the date the licence is revoked, not the date you find out about it.

Write the deadline on the front of every letter in pen. Stops you misreading the date later when you're tired.

Step two: understand Section 3C leave

An in-time application and a one-day-late application lead to very different places.

An in-time application keeps your existing visa alive while the Home Office decides. The law calls this Section 3C leave. While it's running, you keep the same right to work and the same right to rent you had before.

If your application is even one day late, you don't get Section 3C leave. Your visa has expired. You're an overstayer until a decision is made. Employers and landlords are legally required to check status, and many will end the contract or the tenancy when they find out.

Apply before the deadline even if the application isn't perfect. Evidence can be added once the application is lodged. The reverse, putting yourself back in time after becoming an overstayer, isn't possible under the rules.

Step three: name the deadline in front of you

These are the urgent deadlines we see most often in the Edinburgh office:

Student visa curtailment

University of Edinburgh, Heriot-Watt, Napier, Queen Margaret, Edinburgh College, all of them report attendance, withdrawal and progression failures to UKVI. The Home Office then sends a curtailment notice with a short window to leave or switch.

Skilled Worker visa expiry

Tech and finance employers across the city handle a lot of in-country extensions. The application window is the 28 days before expiry. Some applicants leave it later and run into Section 3C problems.

Partner visa progression

The 30-month points on the five-year and ten-year partner routes. Missing the renewal window resets the route or causes the whole thing to collapse.

ILR application window

The window opens 28 days before your qualifying date. Many applicants don't realise it has opened, or wait for a more convenient time, and the absences calculation turns against them.

Home Office further information request

Caseworker wants payslips, bank statements, a marriage certificate, sometimes a fresh biometric. Deadlines are usually 10 to 14 days. Miss it and they decide without the documents.

Sponsor licence revocation

60 days from revocation. Often the clock has started before the worker hears about it from the employer.

If you've already missed the deadline

It isn't always over.

The Immigration Rules contain a 14-day exception. Where someone applies within 14 days of their leave ending and gives a good reason for the delay, the application can still be treated as in-time. Bereavement, hospitalisation, postal failure, immigration adviser misconduct, serious family emergencies, all of these have worked.

Beyond 14 days, the route narrows. Sometimes a fresh application from outside the UK is the cleanest fix, even though it feels like a step back. Sometimes a human rights claim is the right move. In narrow cases, a judicial review of the Home Office's refusal to consider the application is what's needed.

Which one fits yours is what a consultation answers. Don't decide on your own.

Step four: pull the documents together before the call

The consultation moves faster if these are in front of you.

The original visa decision and any subsequent Home Office letters.

Your passport and BRP.

The letter or notice that contains the deadline. The envelope where you have it, because the postmark sometimes matters.

For partner or family cases, evidence of the relationship. Tenancy agreements with both names, joint bank statements, photos, messages. Quality over quantity.

For Skilled Worker cases, the Certificate of Sponsorship and recent payslips.

For students, the CAS and the most recent letter from the university.

For ILR applicants, your absences record. Dates of travel, reasons, and any evidence supporting absences over 180 days in a 12-month period.

Packages people in your situation usually use

After the consultation, where the route is clear, the next step is a fixed-fee package. Every package fee includes VAT and is per person.

Further Leave to Remain – £1,299

In-country extensions of family and private life leave. Further Leave to Remain package.

Skilled Worker Visa – £1,499

New applications, extensions and switches. Skilled Worker Visa package.

Indefinite Leave to Remain – £1,449

Settlement applications. ILR package.

UK Family Visas – £1,449

Spouse, partner and family extensions or settlement. UK Family Visas package.

First-tier Tribunal Appeal – £1,999

Where the refusal carries a right of appeal and you're inside the 14-day window. First-tier Tribunal Appeal package.

Fee Waiver Package – £840

For human-rights-based applications where the Home Office fee and the Immigration Health Surcharge aren't affordable upfront. Fee Waiver package.

Home Office filing fees and the Immigration Health Surcharge are paid directly to the Home Office.

How to book

Pick a slot in the Calendly link. Most consultations are bookable inside 24 hours.

Book your consultation →

If you can't find a slot that works, email info@abimmigrationlaw.co.uk and we'll find one. Phone is 0141 237 3137. Background on our Edinburgh team and the wider services we cover is on the Edinburgh immigration lawyer page.

People often arrive embarrassed about how close to the wire they've left things. Most urgent cases come to us this way.

Common questions