Clinton K

Review of Westkin Associates

1. Nature of my case

1. Nature of my case
The nature of my case was such that I was applying for a family of a settled person visa or FLR (M) in January 2017. Me and my girlfriend who is a British citizen were looking for a lawyer with a comprehensive knowledge of home office immigration guidelines to help us with our application. I was transitioning from a Tier 4 student visa after graduating from my Masters and I initially approached Westkin because they had great reviews and a seemingly spotless reputation for handling immigration matters.

We initially applied for a same day application on the 16 Jan 2017 and got rejected because the case worker handling our application did not fully understanding the home office's guidelines. This was frustrating to say the least. On our way back home from the appointment, we told Jocelyn what had happened and shared with her the reasons for our rejection. She quickly urged us to get back to the office that same day and apply again on the grounds that the case worker clearly missed out on a key interpretation of their bylaws. Her quick thinking gave us another chance.

According to the HOME OFFICE website, all application should take 8 weeks for a response unless you're told that it is going to take longer. It took the home office over 4 months to get back to us!! and when they did, they rendered my application invalid because according to their records, I had two outstanding applications! which was of course nonsense. In any case Jocelyn presented us with the option to submit a PAP form, which we did and waited for the home office's response.

The Home office eventually agreed to our claim and asked us to resubmit our application again (with relevant fees and IHS charge of course)!! which we did. At this point it had been over 6 months, 2 home office errors and still no real deadline of when a decision will be made.

We decided to involve on (the advice of Jocelyn) our local MP's office to help us follow up the home office as the situation had gotten dire and incredibly frustrating!!. After launching our complaint, and more back and forths between the Home office and the MP's office, I was finally granted leave on the the 16th of August. Roughly 7 months after my initial application.

2. Our caseworker
In our initial consultation, we were introduced to one Jocelyn Howorth. Her expertise and knowledge of Home office guidelines as well as of how she was going to handle our case impressed us greatly. Through our whole application period, she remained conscientious, diligent, incisive, insightful and calming. Put plainly, we would not have gotten as far as we did through let down after frustrating let down were it not for her expertise. I cannot recommend her highly enough, she is truly great at what she does. Amongst lawyers, I have never met any better.

All in all, It was very trying time filled with downs and more downs. I cannot speak of the entire Westkin staff but Jocelyn and her assistants were professional, courteous and very intelligent.

I would want them in my corner in any immigration matters.