Sole Representative Visa: Home Office will tighten the rules from 4/06/20

Home Office has announced changes in Immigration Rules last week, specifically in Sole Representative Visa. Note that these changes come into effect on 4 June, but any sole representative application submitted before then will be decided in accordance with the current Rules.

You can find outlines of it below:

1. The Rules now specify that the overseas employer must continue to have its headquarters and principle place of business outside the United Kingdom.
2. An applicant must be a senior employee and cannot engage in their own business or represent any other business in the UK.
3. The Rules now include a “genuineness assessment”, specifying that an applicant needs to “genuinely” meet the Rules.

Adding this wording to the Rules allows decision-makers to refuse an application on the basis of their own, subjective assessment that an applicant may meet the Rules but they don’t actually meet the Rules, because decision-makers don’t believe the applicant is using them genuinely.

Moreover, there is new wording that the business’s branch or subsidiary should not be “established solely for the purpose of facilitating the entry and stay of the applicant”.

4. The Rules now also state that the applicant must have “relevant skills, experience and knowledge of the business”.
5. The Rules used to say that a sole representative should not be “a majority shareholder in the overseas business”, they now say the sole representative should not “have a majority stake in, or otherwise own or control, that overseas business, whether that ownership control is by means of shareholding, partnership agreement, sole proprietorship or any other arrangement”.
6. It is no longer possible for the partner of someone with a majority stake in the overseas business to rely on the Rules and have the owner of the business come in as their dependent.

CONSULTATION FROM IMMIGRATION LAWYERS IN LONDON – Sole Representative Visa 

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Mann’s Solutions is international immigration law firm with offices in London, Hong Kong, Istanbul and Moscow and has expertise in offering UK Visas and Immigration by Investment services to high net worth individuals. Our immigration lawyers regulated by OISC (Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner).

For further information or to discuss your personal circumstances in a private consultation with our immigration lawyers in London Office, please contact us at enquiries@manns-solutions.com or call +44 207 993 63 46.