A. Williams & Co. (Solicitors) A. Williams & Co. (Solicitors) - Work Done

Information on the Immigration Services we provide and those we do not provide

We provide advice and representation on the following immigration issues;

Prepare and represent you at tribunal appeals in London.
Assist you with overseas applications as we have experience in making representations to Entry Clearance Officers abroad
Naturalisation and registration applications.
EEA applications – registrations and permanent residence
Visitors applications – all types
Judicial review of decisions.
Work related applications
Investors applications
Entrepreneur renewals.
Settlement applications.
Sponsor Licence applications.
Applications Outside the immigration rules

We do not carry out asylum applications nor legal aid applications nor mental health applications under the Immigration laws.

The people carrying out the work.

Our Principal - Akin Williams has primary responsibility for the legal work carried out on each matter and is charged out at £350.00 plus 20% VAT per hour - £450.00 plus 20% VAT per hour depending on the nature of the work and its complexity. Our Principal has over 17 years post qualification experience as a solicitor in the UK and over 30 years post qualification experience as a solicitor from a foreign common law jurisdiction.

Our Prices and Costs

Generally, our Principal’s hourly rate is: £350 per hour plus 20% VAT – £500 per hour plus 20% VAT depending on the complexity of the matter.

Our retainer letter will however state all the specific requirements of the work to be done however, on average, basic immigration written advisory work takes between 5 – 20 hours to complete. This means that on average costs are between £1750 plus 20% VAT – £10,000 plus 20% VAT depending on the complexity of the immigration advice required.

The exact number of hours it will take depends on the circumstances in your case. Such as:

The amount of supporting evidence that we need to consider.
The nature and type of documents we may have to draft to support your application.
Which language(s) you speak.
Whether you are applying with other dependants.
Whether there are already court orders in respect of your matter.
The nature of the difficulties you may have encountered prior to your application.
The urgency of the application in which case we may have to include additional staff on the work to be done.
If you are able to provide sufficient evidence at our first meeting and clearly meet the applicable Immigration Rules, the cost is likely to be at the lower end of this range.

What services are included

The work will generally involve:

discussing your circumstances in detail and confirming the most appropriate application for you to make and what other options may be available to you.
preparing instructions on your matter with a view to providing you with written legal advice working with a barrister if required
giving you advice about the requirements of the Immigration Rules and whether you meet the criteria
if you do not fulfil certain criteria, whether this can be overcome and how. This can on average can take up to 10 hours depending on the complexity of the criteria to be fulfilled.
considering the supporting evidence you have provided, which we anticipate will take 5 – 20 hours*
where necessary, helping you obtain further evidence (such as medical records and bank statements), including taking statements of any witnesses
preparing your application and submitting it on your behalf, which we anticipate will take 2 hours
Attendance at a Home Office interview: if the Home Office ask you to attend an interview, we will give you clear advice (and discuss the possibility of us attending with you) at the appropriate time. This could be between 5 – 20 hours of work.

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Services Provided

Work Done

Please contact us for more details on any of the foregoing :

EMPLOYMENT LAW

We represented clients on a wide range of employment matters, including;

redundancy, unfair dismissal, wrongful dismissal
race discrimination claims
sexual harassment claims
disability discrimination
drafting compromise and conciliation agreements

Example of recent work;

Filing a claim on behalf of a probationary employee against her employer for ‘automatically unfair dismissal,’ and representing the employee at the Tribunal.
Acting on behalf of an employer in the private sector in relation to a claim for sex discrimination, breach of contract and personal injury and working with ACAS towards reaching a conciliated agreement.
Providing advice to an employee in public office in respect of discrimination claims against the employer.

FAMILY LAW

We provided advice and representation in the following areas;

separation and judicial separation .
divorce petition grounds.
financial matters arising out of separation or divorce.
Review of tax and pensions matters.
International and jurisdictional issues.
Injunctions and restraining orders.
Cohabitation and premarital contracts.

Where children were involved, our areas of advice and assistance included:

Custody issues and maintenance payments towards the children.
Residency issues.
Contact order issues.
International Adoption advice.
International Wardship and guardianship issues.

Example of recent work;

Advice and opinion on cross cultural marital laws and the validity or otherwise of a subsequent 18 year ‘marriage’ when the spouse was still married at the time of the alleged marriage.
Advice and opinion on marriage by cohabitation and repute.
Advice and opinion on implication of a bigamous relationship.
Providing instructions to experts for handwriting analysis reports to the court.
Advice on Calderbank offers for settlement.
Advice andinstructions to the handwriting expert division of the police in a foreign jurisdiction.
Advice on appeal of the maintenance pending suit order and on stay of execution of the freezing order. The issue of Maintenance pending suit by the court was considered especially where the jurisdiction of the court was being constested.
Acting on behalf of a client to enforce the terms of a consent order for the upkeep and maintenance of their children following the break down of the marriage and subsequent divorce.
Filing and defending applications to court for third party debt orders, charging orders on the relevant properties and registration of the orders with the land registry to enforce the arrears of maintenance payments accrued.
Applications made to defend hardship applications.
Applications for leave to enforce arrears of maintenance orders.
Notification of Home office and subsequent litigation to prevent child abduction from a foreign jurisdiction.
Agency and representation in the family court on behalf of a disabled great aunt for defined contact with her great nieces.

WILLS & INTESTACY

We have represented and provided advice to international clients in matters involving contentious probate and intestacy disputes either directly or through our vast network of international law firms sometimes where the client could not travel overseas or where litigation had already been commenced against the client in the UK or overseas. In one instance, in the High Court at the Strand, we provided evidence of a mutual will which was not validly revoked by a testator to set aside a later will made by the testator which was not in favour of the testator's spouse. We have successfully "warned off" caveats filed against the applicants for letters of administration in overseas jurisdiction, conducted relevant searches at the Probate Registry, provided advice to clients on the resealing of grants of administration and successfully prevented a deceased's estate being being taken into receivership pending the grant of letters of administration. Clients include individuals and families from the UK, India, Nigeria & USA.

RESIDENTIAL CONVEYANCING

We provided advice and representation to both landlords and tenants in respect of their rights in applications to acquire the freehold of leasehold houses and lease extensions of both flats and houses. We also advised property owners on short-term lettings for investment purposes and prospective tenants on the terms of tenancy agreements for occupation.Additional work done included;

Property conveyancing in England and Wales.
Cross border property trust litigation.
Remortgaging.
Advice on Cross border property finance.
Preparation of lease extensions.
Preparation of Licences to Assign.
Effecting Charge of property in the Land Registry.
A consideration of the effect of a freehold merger on existing underlease covenants and section 139 of the Law of Property Act 1925.

IMMIGRATION

We provided advice and representation on the following issues;

Preparation of work permit applications.
Rights of detainees in immigration matters .
Entry clearance for Highly Skilled Migrants, sole representatives of foreigncompanies, businessmen or those with self-employed status, self-employed writers, composers and artists, retired persons or independent means, investors and innovators, and students.
Advice in relation to the dependents of persons admitted under the above categories.
Advice as to rights of entry and leave to remain for spouses of British Citizens, EU Citizens and those settled in the UK.
Naturalisation.
Human rights applications.
EU issues.
Conduct of adjudicators and Tribunal appeals.
All tax, property and other issues arising out of immigration to the UK.

Other examples of recent work;

Applications for the highly skilled Migrant Programme.
Successful prosecution of Appeals of visa extension renewals by the Home Office and formulation of grounds of appeal.
Collaboration with a US specialist immigration law firm on the processing of US immigration visas for UK and African citizens and businesses that had been refused appropriate US B1/B2 visas or green card residency status by the US immigration authorities.