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Dreams of Business Expansion to the UK Shatter

Published on: 24 Feb 2018
Reading time: Approx 4 mins

Refusal of a UK Sole representative visa often creates a perplexing, frustrating and an upsetting experience for an individual or for the company. Even after submitting a lot of documents, there are few aspects, which are by chance overlooked by you or the entry clearance officer assessing your application. Let us share few real-time stories and insights on refusals on Sole representative visa UK faced by few of our clients.

Ram sons International, a family-owned business, have been into leather and equine accessories business since the early 90’s. They then decided, why not test the water outside Mumbai, India. Mr. Ram being the founding partner of the company decides to send his son to the UK to open a branch subsidiary office in the UK. They later applied for a sole representative visa, submitted all relevant company documents but much to their surprise when they received the refusal they were upset as it was refused. They knew they lost the sole representative government visa fees and more than that, the amount of time they invested to get this visa. Furthermore, they knew how important the UK sole rep visa was for their company.

Mr. Ram spoke to us and upon our review, it came to our notice that the application was wrongly refused and requires an administrative review.

The Entry clearance officer observed that the applicant shared a large proportion of the remuneration and profits between his father and himself. The sole representative visa immigration requirement clearly lays down that the applicant should not have more than 50% of share in the parent company. The ECO in the present case overlooked the company documents, as the applicant was not a majority shareholder.

It is interesting to share this bit with the readers that what goes in the UK Home Office records once can always be held against you to assess any subsequent applications.

Upon further review of the refusal letter, the ECO did point out the designation and job role of the applicant a few months before his present sole representative visa application. The immigration requirement suggests that the applicant should be employed with the company for the last 12 months in the capacity of a minority shareholder to apply for a sole representative visa.

Is it the right time to set up a business in UK? Know here

In another interesting case, a famous jewellery house wished to set up a subsidiary branch office in the UK. They never thought they would be refused under the English language proficiency requirement. When it comes to UK Immigration rules they keep on changing and are very specific and only in few cases alternate documents are being considered by the Entry clearance officer. The applicant submitted a PTE Academic test report to evidence that his knowledge of English is equivalent to level A1 or above of the Council of Europe’s Common European Framework for Language Learning. The UKVI has laid down the prescribed test centres and specific exams to be taken for a Sole rep visa the UK and not only would any English test of any level be acceptable to meet the requirement. In Mr. Zaveri’s case, he had previously been to the UK on Sole representative visa, where in his previous application he did meet all the requirements and successfully got the sole representative visa.

It is when a few years ago the English language requirement was different from as on today when he made the application, only when the revised Immigration rules came the English language requirement for approved English language test was changed and kept at CEFR Level A1 in speaking and listening.

Imp read: UK Visa Refusal: What To Do Next

If you want more information, you can reach out to our UK Business visa expert on