Kisuule, R (on the application of) v Secretary of State for the Home Department

For an immigration application, the date of submission is the date on which a valid application is made. Where required photographs were enclosed with the original application but became detached before processing, the application remains validly made on its original date.

Tier 4 applicants must demonstrate both the required amount of maintenance funds and their availability for the prescribed period. Evidence from a family company does not constitute sponsorship by an “international company” merely because the company operates in more than one country. A decision may therefore be procedurally wrong as to the application date but substantively justified because the financial requirements were not met.

The claimant applied for further leave to remain as a Tier 4 student on 27 November 2009, shortly before his existing leave expired. His application included documents intended to satisfy the financial requirements and, as he maintained, photographs required by the application form. The Secretary of State returned the application as invalid because the photographs were missing. The claimant resubmitted it on 18 January 2010, but the Secretary of State treated that as the application date and refused the application because the financial evidence was out of date and insufficient.

The claimant sought judicial review. The central issues were whether the application should be treated as made on 27 November 2009 and whether the financial evidence satisfied the Tier 4 requirements.

1. Application date. The court accepted the claimant’s evidence that the required photographs had been enclosed with the original application and had probably become detached before reaching the caseworker. The application was therefore validly made on 27 November 2009. The decision treating it as made on 18 January 2010 was wrong.
2. Maintenance funds. Appendix C to the Immigration Rules required the applicant to have the specified funds at the application date and to have held them for the period specified in the relevant guidance. The applicable guidance required personal bank or building society statements showing the required funds throughout a 28-day period ending no more than one month before the application.
3. The claimant was required to demonstrate £3,720 for himself and his dependants. His personal and joint accounts did not show that sum throughout the required period. The company statements supplied for Eco Petro (U) Ltd did not cover 28 days and, in any event, the company could not properly be treated as an official financial sponsor. On the material before the court, it was not an international company within the meaning of the guidance.
4. The refusal on the financial ground was therefore unimpeachable, even though the application date had been wrongly determined. That part of the decision was not quashed. The court granted a declaration that the application had been validly made on 27 November 2009 and quashed the decision insofar as it held that the bank statements did not cover the required period by reference to the later application date. Any costs issue was to be addressed if not agreed.