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    Immigration

    Supporting your move to the UK

    At Healys our specialist immigration solicitors have years of experience and are experts in their field.

    Our Immigration practice deals with all types of visa applications and offers comprehensive legal advice as 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 offer a fixed price service.

    Healys ‘prompt, dedicated and focused‘ team is experienced in all areas of immigration and nationality law and handles a wide variety of visa issues from initial application to appeals. Senior partner Marios Pattihis heads up the department and has notable expertise in advising high-net-worth individuals looking to invest in the UK. Solicitor Nagesh Jain is also praised by clients.
    Legal 500 - 2022

    Business Immigration Solicitors

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

    • Tier 1 – Investor Visa (Extension)
    • Tier 1 – Entrepreneurs (Extension)
    • Start Up Visa
    • Innovator Visa
    • Sponsor Licences (Fresh and Renewals)
    • Certificate of Sponsorship
    • Skilled Worker Visa
    • Health and Care Worker Visa
    • Intra-Company Transfer Visa
    • Student Visas (including Child Student Visa, Graduate Visa, Parent of a Child Student Visa)
    • Tier 5 – Temporary Workers Visa (including Youth Mobility Scheme Visa, Seasonal Worker Visa, Charity Worker Visa, Temporary Worker Visa)
    • Representatives of Overseas Business Visa (Extension)

    Personal Immigration Solicitors

    Healys Immigration team specialises in all areas of UK Immigration and Nationality Law. Our full service encompasses every stage in the immigration process, 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, Spouse, Civil Partner, Unmarried Partner & Children Visas
    • PBS Dependants and Other Dependants Visa
    • Visitors (all categories) including: Visit Visa, Business Visit Visa, Private Medical Treatment Visit Visa, Child Visit Visa, Permitted Paid Engagement Visa and Marriage Visitor Visa
    • Complex personal immigration matters and concessions outside of the rules
    • Refusals and judicial reviews
    • EEA Settled Status under EU Settlement Scheme
    • Indefinite leave to remain
    • UK Ancestry
    • Applications for British citizenship by Naturalisation, Registration and by Automatic Acquisition

    Client Services

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

    Included within our full range of immigration services we 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 contacts

    The Healys Immigration department is part of a wider International team, which operates international desks covering the MENA region, Asia Pacific, Russia & the CIS, India & Pakistan, Cyprus & Greece, and Italy.

    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.

     

    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
    Image of Marios Pattihis
    Marios Pattihis
    Senior Partner (LLP Member)
    Meet the team
    Immigration capabilities
    Immigration 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.
    • Nagesh Jain recently acted for our client, a PBS dependent of an Investor Migrant, in seeking to obtain Indefinite Leave to Remain. Although Immigration rules state that any PBS dependant who makes application for settlement must ensure that they have not exceeded absences of 180 days during any 12 months period on a rolling basis, our client had in fact been absent from the UK for more than 600 days continuously. These absences were however due to COVID-19 and other serious and compelling personal circumstances; and Nagesh was able to secure for the client Indefinite Leave to Remain in the UK.
    Immigration insights
    • New Graduate Immigration Route

      1st July 2021

      The new Graduate immigration route has opened for applications today (1 July 2021).

      The Graduate route provides an opportunity for international students who have been awarded their degree to stay in the UK and work, or look for work, at any skill level for two years, or three years for doctoral students. Continue reading »

    • Young Professionals Scheme

      12th May 2021

      An Opportunity for the Young and Talented Indian Professionals

      The UK has unveiled a new “young professionals scheme” with India that will allow under-30s from either country to live and work in the other for up to two years. Continue reading »

    • Healys Recommended as Leading Firm in Legal 500

      23rd October 2020

      Healys LLP has again been recognised as a leading firm in the latest edition of the Legal 500.

      The Legal 500 directory provides comprehensive coverage on legal services providers in over 100 countries, with independent and unbiased commentary on the leading law firms.

      This year Healys has been ranked in 4 practice areas, with 8 lawyers individually recommended. Continue reading »

    Immigration awards
    • Legal 500 2021 - Human Resources: Immigration - ranked Tier 3 (London) - "Healys LLP offers the full spectrum of visa application assistance for individual clients. Omar Shams, who has worked in the US, Egypt and the UK, heads the team. He acts for high-net-worth individuals seeking to invest in the UK, including clients in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia."
    • Legal 500 2020 - Human Resources: Immigration - ranked: Tier 3 (London) - “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 2019 - 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 2018 - 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 2017 - Human Resources: Immigration – ranked: other recommended firm
    Immigration news
    • New Graduate Immigration Route

      1st July 2021

      The new Graduate immigration route has opened for applications today (1 July 2021).

      The Graduate route provides an opportunity for international students who have been awarded their degree to stay in the UK and work, or look for work, at any skill level for two years, or three years for doctoral students. Continue reading »

    • Young Professionals Scheme

      12th May 2021

      An Opportunity for the Young and Talented Indian Professionals

      The UK has unveiled a new “young professionals scheme” with India that will allow under-30s from either country to live and work in the other for up to two years. Continue reading »

    • Healys Recommended as Leading Firm in Legal 500

      23rd October 2020

      Healys LLP has again been recognised as a leading firm in the latest edition of the Legal 500.

      The Legal 500 directory provides comprehensive coverage on legal services providers in over 100 countries, with independent and unbiased commentary on the leading law firms.

      This year Healys has been ranked in 4 practice areas, with 8 lawyers individually recommended. Continue reading »

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