Good morning Thanks For letting me onto your forum. My wife arrived in the UK in 2008, on a fiance visa. In 2009 she got FLR for 2 years, and ILR in 2011. This was before Biometric Residence Permits (BRPs) was a thing. As a result, we never even applied for one, and she can happily come into the country using her vignette in an expired passport. But, she just got a job at a big Government Agency. And they want a Share Code. To get the Share Code, she needs a BRP. But, she doesn't have a BRP. So UKVI advised us to apply to transfer her visa to a BRP (free because BRPs will cease to exist in 2025) and they gave us a unique access number that we gave to the Government Agency so they can check her right to work. Because she has ILR, she has a right to work, but proving this seems different every couple of years, right? Anyway, she has applied for a BRP. What surprised me was that this, what is dressed up to be a simple task will take upto 6 months to complete. I asked someone on a different forum who said that, effectively, we was applying to get a new Visa! So, it will face the same scrutiny as if applying for FLR/ILR/Citizenship - but that can't be right can it? I hate dealing with UKVI. The reason is that, when we applied for the fiance visa, we had huge problems with my wife's annullment. The caseworker just didn't understand what an annullment was and was tantamount accusing us of making it up. At the time the fiance visa was in jeopardy. So stressful, right? Anyway, part of the reason we never applied for a BRP, apart from her not needing it, was that she could prove her right to work using her visa vignette until recently. And, we didn't want to go through the pain of potentially facing the issues again. Even though they accepted her annulment in her three previous visa applications I just get nervous that they will kick off again. It's our experience of this that has held us back from applying for citizenship all these years. What are your experiences, if any, of transferring a Visa vignette to a BRP? Is the person above right to say that we are, effectively, applying for a new visa rather than transferring a visa that we already worked hard, and spent a lot of money on, to get? Many Thanks Guybrush
Yes you have to apply for a BRP, no it won’t be scrutinised as a new visa application as you have ILR, yes may take up to 6 months (may). Yes BRPs will be obsolete in 2024/25
