Covid has brought devastation, but also some welcome pragmatic flexibility from the UK Home Office.
Changes include
* Assurance applications: if your visa is about to run out, but you can't travel, or have good reasons for not travelling, your status can be extended. This has typically been for only a month at a time, and is not a substitute for a long term status, but it can give a helpful breathing space. [WARNING: covid Assurance status breaks one's period of continuous Tier 2 or Tier 1 residence, so can have implications for settelement]
* The ability to make applications from within the UK, even if only here as a Visitor. This is not a right, and justifications need to be provided, but the logic is obvious. It has never seemed that sensible to force people to get onto aeroplanes, spend lots of money, and emit tonnes of carbon, just to go to a British consular office , and submit an application (which is then typically referred back to the UK for processing), before getting on another plane and emitting more carbon, to return. Add in the fact that airports and planes can be congested places, where social distancing is not easy, and surfaces can be touched by thousands of people, and the case against forcing people to make extra journeys becomes even stonger
If Covid is getting in the way of your visa application, contact J Dunlop & Co for a consultation
