Business Immigration
Chattertons are able to advise and assist on all areas of immigration law.
To read what our clients have to say about our immigration services click here.
We can offer you a free consultation by telephone call limited to 20 minutes per matter, for expert advice call 01205 310025 and ask to speak to our immigration experts.
Our Immigration Law team has a number of years of extensive experience behind them. We can advise on applications for:
- European free movement (that is for citizens of countries within the European Economic Area (EEA) and Switzerland and their family members (who may not be EEA or Swiss citizens themselves)) including: residence cards, registration certificates, permanent residence, family member residence stamps (FMRS), applications under the Worker Registration Scheme (WRS) and family permits,
- Indefinite leave to remain (ILR) (otherwise called Settlement),
- Extensions of limited leave to remain,
- Right of Abode,
- Visas for visitors (whether those visitors be general, business, sports, entertainer or special visitors), or
- If you wish to work, study or join family in the UK.
We also provide services to those who wish to come to the UK under: Tiers 1 (Highly Skilled Worker, Entrepreneur, Investor and Post-study Worker), and Tier 2 (Skilled Worker, Intra-company Transfer Worker, Minister of Religion and Sports Person) of the new Points Based System (‘PBS’) (formerly the Highly Skilled Migrant Programme (HSMP) and Work Programme Scheme, also known as the Work Permit Scheme). We can also advise: Students under Tier 4 of the PBS and Temporary Sponsored Workers (creative and sporting workers, charity workers, religious workers, government authorized exchange workers, international agreement workers and workers under a youth mobility scheme) under Tier 5 of the PBS. We can also advise company sole representatives.
We are also able to advise employers looking to employ non-UK residents. In particular, how to avoid falling foul of the new stringent requirements in relation to employment of foreign workers, (which if done incorrectly could cost the employer a substantial fine per illegal employee, it is up to £10,000 per illegal employee). We can also advise employers how to obtain a sponsors licence to enable employers (who will become sponsors) to issue certificates of sponsorship (COS) to prospective foreign workers. We can advise employers what records and what reports they must keep and make for each employee, and we can check those records for employers at regular intervals. We are also able to assist employers with any site inspections / visits / investigations made by the Home Office. We can help you prepare for those visits and also assist you during the visit and after the visit. We can also help you to renew your sponsors licence.
We also advise employers who have been issued with civil penalty fines. It is important that you seek legal advice when you are issued with a notification of potential liability (NOPL) and or a notification of liability (NOL). There are strict deadlines to adhere to. We are able to advise with regards to the fine, and depending on the circumstances, we may be able to appeal and/or object against the fine, and or agree monthly installments of the fine. Depending on the circumstances we may be able to remove and or reduce the fine. You will have 28 days to react to the civil penalty fine / notification of liability. If you do nothing and you do not pay the fine by the deadline stated, then the Home Office may recover the fine through the courts as a debt. The Home Office may also add their costs for pursuing you through the courts. This action may also result in business insolvency.
For more information on the crackdown of illegal working click here.
Immigration law is very complex and very fast moving. We invite you to join our employment and immigration database of clients, where we will send employer’s who are on this database, a monthly employment bulletin (free of charge) discussing recent changes in employment law, and immigration mailshots (free of charge) which will alert you to changes in immigration law, rules and guidance as and when those changes happen, which may effect your business if you employ or are going to employ non-UK workers. You will then be able to action the issues brought to your attention, or contact us for further information. . If you would like to register for these bulletins/mailshop, please email info@chattertons.com stating which bulletin you would like to receive or both.
Our Immigration Team also run a number of seminars throughout the year. Please refer to our ‘Events’ section on this website for any upcoming seminars. We are also able to come to your place of work to offer training to your staff who are responsible for recruitment, please contact us for details. Please also refer to our Testimonials page where we have put some quotes from some of the attendees to these events.
We can advise spouses (husbands and wives), civil partners, fiancées and unmarried partners of people present and settled in the UK as to their stay in the UK and the stay of their dependants (usually children) within that relationship.
We can also advise on naturalisation (that is British Citizenship) of individuals as British Citizens whether it be on the basis of marriage or residence or applications from commonwealth citizens with UK ancestry.
If you are not sure under what route you can come to the UK or remain in the UK, then we are able to review your options with you and explain the routes available to you.
We provide a service to advise you on what is required and what supporting evidence is needed to make your application, whether you are making that application from within or outside the UK. This includes advising you as to the likely prospects of success and also of the drawbacks to your application. We can take you through the process step by step, by helping you to prepare and submit your application. In terms of immigration status, it can be a case of stepping blocks until your status is ‘no longer subject to immigration control,’ we are pleased to say that most of our clients stay with us for advice right from first entering the UK, to obtaining Indefinite Leave to Remain and or British Citizenship (Naturalisation).
We are also able to provide a service advising you as to any right of appeal that you may have before The First-tier Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) and/or the Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber. These are new chambers, which replace the former Asylum and Immigration Tribunal (the AIT). We can advise you about your appeal, whether you are making that appeal from within or outside the UK. To read about Chattertons’ recent success stories relating to appeals click here.
We pride ourselves on being different to our competitors, as we offer a very personal and friendly service, offering you individual and tailored advice and solutions depending on what your own individual needs and requirements are, we appreciate that everyone’s circumstances and needs are different. We will try our best to solve any problems and concerns. We are able to offer a very competitive price for our expert services.
We are able to offer a translator who can speak Russian and Latvian. However, our immigration team have advised individuals from all over the world, and arrangements can be made if English is not your or the applicants preferred medium of communication.
Our solicitors in the Immigration team are members of the ILPA — The Immigration Law Practitioners' Association.
We welcome referrals from other law firms or other bodies who are not able to offer legal advice.
We are also able to prepare or swear affidavits or affirmations. We are also able to certify your immigration documents and paperwork.
We are English lawyers, and so we are not able to advise you as to the immigration process and systems in other countries if you wish to emigrate from the UK, we can only advise you about UK immigration.
Useful Website Addresses
Contact Us
For further information or advice on Immigration, please e-mail
immigration@chattertons.com or contact a member of our Immigration team
on one of the numbers given below.
Immigration Team