Specialist Immigration Solicitors Based in London, Brighton & Sussex

Supporting your move to the UK

At Healys Solicitors our specialist Immigration Solicitors, based in London and Brighton, have years of experience in dealing with all types of visa applications.

Our bi-lingual specialist immigration solicitors are experts in the field and offer a comprehensive legal advice as a standard. The Team has experience of dealing with clients from all over the world and will ensure any application meets the legal requirements for entry into the United Kingdom. We offer a Free discussion to review your case over the phone and if you decide to choose us we offer a Fixed Price service so you won’t get any nasty surprises from us. You can see how we have helped our clients by visiting the case studies section.

Healys LLP acts for high-net-worth individuals in the sports, music, theatre, films and entertainment industries, advising on complex personal immigration matters and concessions outside of the rules, refusals, deportations and judicial reviews and ILR applications. It also handles family-related issues and is experienced in cases involving international adoption and surrogacy. The team also advises UK universities on student visas and acts for companies on sponsorship licence matters.

Legal 500 2020

Business Immigration Solicitors

We offer a specialist business immigration service for those corporate clients who wish to recruit non EU nationals to work in the UK; transfer existing employees to a UK subsidiary; start a business or invest in an established UK business. Our specialist services include:

Tier 1 – entrepreneurs (extensions)
Tier 1 – Start Up Visa
Tier 1 – Innovator Visa
Tier 2 – sponsor licences
Tier 2 – general visas
Tier 4 – student visas
Tier 5 – temporary workers
Sole representatives of overseas businesses

Personal Immigration Solicitors

Healys Immigration Solicitors specialises in all areas of UK Immigration and Nationality Law. Our services extend from lodging an initial application with the relevant immigration authorities through to appeal, where necessary, making ours, a comprehensive “one-stop” service for our clients. Our services include:

Fiancé, spousal & children visas
Visitors (all categories)
Complex personal immigration matters and concessions outside of the rules
Refusals, deportations and judicial reviews
EEA residence & permanent residence
Indefinite leave to remain
Applications for British citizenship
International adoption and surrogacy
UK ancestry

Client Services

We take pride in the partnerships we forge with our clients and our ability to anticipate our clients’ needs allows us to offer them commercial solutions to legal problems.

Many of the Team’s clients come from organisations from all over the world that are spread across many industries including media, technology, financial services, sport, hospitality and retail. We also have relationships with some of the UK’s largest law firms, supporting them with their employees and their clients.

As well as the full range of immigration services, when you use Healys Immigration Solicitors we can offer individuals and businesses:

Fixed fees
Updates from our team on important law changes
Training provided by immigration specialists
Business planning and advice from our team
Priority services for specific applications
Maintenance of expatriate records for renewal
Senior level of Home Office contracts

Healys Solicitors’ Immigration Team are a part of a wider International Team which operates International Desks covering India & Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the MENA region, Brazil and Portugal, Nigeria, Italy and Malta and Cyprus and Greece.

We are also registered with the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association. For more information on our services or to have a free discussion on your case, contact us today.

Applying for UK residency? Download our helpful guide

Applying For UK Residency (493 downloads)

Ivon Sampson a partner in our immigration team discusses with Julia Hartley-Brewer on her Talk Radio show the PM’s immigration announcement

Call Us Today

Call our London office on 020 7822 4000 or our Brighton office on 01273 685 888. You can also contact us online.

Call Us Today

London: 020 7822 4000 Brighton: 01273 685 888 Or you can contact us online: Contact Us

Key Contacts

Specialist Immigration Solicitors Based in London, Brighton & Sussex capabilities

Specialist Immigration Solicitors Based in London, Brighton & Sussex experiences

Healys regularly assists clients in applying for and maintaining sponsor licences, providing training to staff in relation to sponsor duties and responsibilities, undertaking compliance audits of company systems and processes and assisting clients in the submission of necessary reports and updates to the Home Office. We have successfully challenged Home Office decisions to suspend sponsor licences and civil penalty fines and been able to have licences reinstated. We currently work for a specialist care home in relation to its Tier 2 licence and have successfully assisted the sponsor in urgently being allocated additional certificates of sponsorship (following an initial Home Office refusal of a request submitted by the sponsor without legal representation) to enable it to recruit specialist nurses trained in nursing those with neurological injury/damage/disease; a current UK shortage occupation.
Our client is a businesswoman, who wanted to enter the UK as a Tier 1 (Entrepreneur) in order to invest in an existing business. We assisted our client with introducing her to our contacts in order to find her the right business in which to invest in, in accordance with her qualifications/experience and advised her on the whole procedure. Once having done so, we prepared our client’s application with supporting relevant documentation in order to meet the Immigration Rules. Our client was subsequently granted Entry Clearance into the UK as a Tier 1 (Entrepreneur). Shortly after our client had been in the UK, she instructed us that she wished for her spouse and children to join her in the UK. We assisted our client in the preparation of her dependants’ applications, which were later granted, and our client’s family entered the UK in order to join her.
Our client is a successful businessman, who wanted to enter the UK as a Tier 1 (Entrepreneur) in order to incorporate his own business in the UK, which would procure raw hides from Europe and UK, process them in the UK and resell them to an international clientele. We assisted our client with the preparation of his application as well as preparing the applications on his dependants’ behalf in order to join him in the UK. Our client was later granted entry clearance into the UK, in order to establish his business, along with his dependents.
We currently provide a bespoke service to a particular investor who, following a successful switch from Tier 2 (General) to Tier 1 (Investor) status, wants follow up ad hoc advice regarding the maintenance of her Tier 1 (Investor) status and quarterly review of her managed portfolio, to give her peace of mind that her status is being looked after throughout so as to put her in the best position to successfully extend her visa on its expiry.
We assisted our client to prepare an EEA PR application. As a result of Brexit we have advised a number of clients wishing to apply for permanent residence. Our client is an EU national who has been exercising EU rights of free movement as a qualified person for more 5 years. We completed the EEA PR form and collected documents that supported their application. The application was granted in February 2017.
Our clients are Zimbabwean nationals. In 2013 they were granted 3 years extension of their Discretionary Leave to remain in the UK because at that time Zimbabwe was refusing to take back their nationals who no longer had leave to remain the UK. We advised our clients in their applications in 2013. In 2016 our clients had accumulated 6 years of Discretionary Leave and were therefore eligible to apply for permanent residence in the UK. We obtained documents from our clients to support the private and family life that they had been enjoying in the UK for the past 3 years. We completed and submitted the application. Our clients were finally granted indefinite leave to remain in the UK.
Acted for a Pakistani client and his family facing deportation. We submitted a human rights claim under Article Eight of the European Convention on Human Rights, requesting permission to extend our client’s stay in the UK on the basis that their child had spent 7 continuous years living in the UK and, referring to Section 55 of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009, that their interests and wellbeing may not best be served by being removed to Pakistan. Our client was granted three years discretionary leave to remain in the UK as a family.
Acted for a male Pakistani national seeking asylum in order to remain in the UK, fearing persecution if he returned to Pakistan due to his being homosexual. Engaging the 1951 Refugee Convention, ratified by the UK, our client was granted refugee status at appeal due to having a well-founded fear of persecution by the country of his nationality.
Acted for an Egyptian client wishing to join his wife in the UK. Despite satisfying the financial and accommodation requirements imposed by Part 8 of the government’s immigration rules, our client’s application was declined due to the fact that the couple did not share a common language. We successfully appealed this decision in court, having persuaded the judge that a common language was not the sole factor in deciding whether a marriage was genuine or not.
Acted for a female Ukraine national who sought to remain in the UK with her husband and daughter. We advised her to issue a human rights claim under Article 8 of the European Convention, arguing that owing to her husband’s status as a political refugee, the only place where they could enjoy the right to family life without interference by a public authority was in the UK. Our client’s application for a variation of her leave to remain was successful at appeal, and she was granted three years discretionary leave to remain in the UK.
Acted for a Sri Lankan refugee, who had previously been placed on a witness protection programme, when his application to extend his and his family’s leave to remain in the UK was denied by the Home Office, due to the fact that Sri Lanka had since developed their own witness protection programme. At appeal, and with expert evidence, it was decided that the witness protection programme in Sri Lanka would fail to offer our client adequate protection, and his application was allowed.
Acted for a large corporation in the Middle East in facilitating the swift transfer of their Vice president from their head office to their London office. This involved obtaining the relevant sponsor license, completing a Tier 2 application, and liaising with both the UK Border Agency and the applicant’s home country Visa service in order to successfully expedite the process.
Acted for a client in making an application (FLR FP) for her minor daughter, a Philippine national, to reside permanently with her in the UK. Having entered the UK as a visitor, the Home Office’s position was initially that the application should be made from the Philippines. We argued that this would be a breach of our client’s human rights, and the Home office agreed to allow our client to make an in-country application and to grant her indefinite leave to remain in the UK.
Acted for a Zimbabwe national in an application to extend her discretionary leave for a further three years. This was initially refused by the Home Office on the grounds that the application was not valid without evidence of identity in the form of a passport or ID card. Her passport having expired and not being able to return to Zimbabwe due to her life being in danger there, our client had good reasons not to provide her identity document with her application. We sent a letter before action to the Home Office in line with the pre-action protocol or judicial review.
Acted for a Canadian client suffering from a mental illness bordering on suicidal ideation. We made an application for our client to be granted leave to remain on discretionary grounds owing to the fact that her mental condition greatly improved after visiting her family in the UK, and she feared it would deteriorate if she were to return to Canada. Though initially refused by the Home Office, the application was successful at appeal.
Acted for a French national exercising treaty rights in the UK as a qualified person. After the Brexit referendum, and prior to the UK leaving the EU in March 2019, our client wished to secure her immigration status in the UK. Despite having automatically acquired permanent residence having lived in the UK legally for 5 years or more, we prepared an EEA PR application which was granted in December 2017.
Acted for a Pakistani national who, having been human trafficked into the UK in 1998, had resided in the UK for 20 years. Our client’s application for indefinite leave to remain was declined and he was granted the right to an in-country appeal. The appeal was put on hold while the police and the Home Office investigated the human trafficking element. After 18 months, and despite the police and Home Office investigations not having been concluded, the appeal proceeded and our client was granted discretionary leave to remain. We are now preparing to challenge the grant of discretionary leave, as opposed to indefinite leave to remain, by way of judicial review.

Specialist Immigration Solicitors Based in London, Brighton & Sussex insights

Covid 19 – Home Office Guidance For Sponsor License holders
3rd April 2020

Employers and Colleges Will Not Face Enforcement Action For Non Attendance of Employees/Students at Work/College Due to Covid 19 Pandemic. Continue reading »

Home Office Temporarily Relaxes Right To Work Checks For Employers

To make it easier for employers to recruit migrant workers during the Covid 19 Pandemic, the Home Office have announced that from 30 March 2020, the following new temporary arrangements are in place. Continue reading »

NHS Migrant Doctors & Nurses Visas Automatically Extended
2nd April 2020

To alleviate the pressures placed on the NHS due to Covid 19, on 31 March 2020 the Home Office made an announcement that around 2800 migrant doctors, nurses and paramedics are to have their visas automatically extended free of charge for 1 year. They will also not have to pay the IHS Surcharge fee. Continue reading »

Covid 19 Guidance for Chinese Nationals in the UK
26th March 2020

Expiry of Visa Whilst Still in the UK

The Home Office Covid 19 Guidance states that Chinese nationals in the UK, who have been compliant with the conditions of their visa/leave before the pandemic outbreak, but whose visas have expired between 24 January 2020 and 30 March 2020, will automatically have their visas extended until 31 March 2020. There is no need for a visa holder to do anything. Therefore, for example, if you are a Chinese student or visitor in the UK, you will be permitted to stay in the UK until 31 March 2020, according to this guidance. Continue reading »

Impact of Covid 19 On Visa and Leave to Remain
25th March 2020

The Home Office have today announced a further extension of visa expiry or leave to remain. If individuals are unable to return to their home country before their leave or visa expires because of Covid 19 travel restrictions then their leave to remain or visa is to be extended to 31 May 2020.

Continue reading »

Specialist Immigration Solicitors Based in London, Brighton & Sussex awards

Legal 500 2018 - Human Resources: Immigration – ranked: Tier 3 (London) - "The ‘professional and knowledgeable’ team at Healys LLP 'stands out for its innovative approach to service delivery'. It is regularly instructed by high-net-worth individuals (including individuals across the sports, music, theatre, films and entertainment sectors) and also advises UK universities on student visas, extensions and reviews. Team head Ivon Sampson is ‘knowledgeable and clear in his advice’. Middle East department head Omar Shams delivers advice with ‘clarity, efficiency and has total focus on the most relevant legal points’. Solicitor Nagesh Jain is also recommended."
Legal 500 2017 - Human Resources: Immigration – ranked: Tier 3 (London) - “Healys LLP’s ‘excellent’ offering acts for high-net-worth individuals, and regularly advises individuals from the sports, music, theatre, film and entertainment industries. It also advises UK Universities on student visas, extensions and reviews, and advises companies on sponsorship licences. Department head Ivon Sampson ‘is willing to fight for clients’. Omar Shams, who heads the Middle East department, advises businesses and high-net-worth individuals on entry into the UK.”
Legal 500 2016 - Human Resources: Immigration – ranked: other recommended firm

Specialist Immigration Solicitors Based in London, Brighton & Sussex news

Covid 19 – Home Office Guidance For Sponsor License holders
3rd April 2020

Employers and Colleges Will Not Face Enforcement Action For Non Attendance of Employees/Students at Work/College Due to Covid 19 Pandemic. Continue reading »

Home Office Temporarily Relaxes Right To Work Checks For Employers

To make it easier for employers to recruit migrant workers during the Covid 19 Pandemic, the Home Office have announced that from 30 March 2020, the following new temporary arrangements are in place. Continue reading »

NHS Migrant Doctors & Nurses Visas Automatically Extended
2nd April 2020

To alleviate the pressures placed on the NHS due to Covid 19, on 31 March 2020 the Home Office made an announcement that around 2800 migrant doctors, nurses and paramedics are to have their visas automatically extended free of charge for 1 year. They will also not have to pay the IHS Surcharge fee. Continue reading »

Covid 19 Guidance for Chinese Nationals in the UK
26th March 2020

Expiry of Visa Whilst Still in the UK

The Home Office Covid 19 Guidance states that Chinese nationals in the UK, who have been compliant with the conditions of their visa/leave before the pandemic outbreak, but whose visas have expired between 24 January 2020 and 30 March 2020, will automatically have their visas extended until 31 March 2020. There is no need for a visa holder to do anything. Therefore, for example, if you are a Chinese student or visitor in the UK, you will be permitted to stay in the UK until 31 March 2020, according to this guidance. Continue reading »

Impact of Covid 19 On Visa and Leave to Remain
25th March 2020

The Home Office have today announced a further extension of visa expiry or leave to remain. If individuals are unable to return to their home country before their leave or visa expires because of Covid 19 travel restrictions then their leave to remain or visa is to be extended to 31 May 2020.

Continue reading »