OA019902011 & OA019992011

The sponsor is a national of China. He has an unedifying immigration history, but he has indefinite leave to remain in the United Kingdom, confirmed following a successful appeal to the First-tier Tribunal. The appellants are his wife and son, the latter now aged 20. The appellants� appeal to this Tribunal against the determination of Judge J C Grant-Hutchinson in the First-tier Tribunal dismissing their appeals against the decisions of the respondent on 22 November 2010 refusing them entry clearance with a view to settlement as the wife and minor child of the sponsor.

The judge therefore concluded that the appeal must be dismissed for failure to meet the maintenance requirements of the rules.

The grounds of the appeal attempt to exploit the judge�s acceptance that the matter was unexpected, by asserting that �since the appeal the sponsor has advised that his wife had employment in 2010 in China�, which had not been taken into account. The grounds also assert that the judge failed to take into account the sponsor�s savings, amounting to some �2,412 in total, and the proceeds of the sale of a house, evidenced by the first appellant�s bank account book. All the documentation relevant to the savings was, it is said, before the First-tier Tribunal.

The judge who granted permission to appeal remarked that it is unlikely that the sponsor�s savings could in the end make very much difference, and the first appellant�s alleged employment in China in 2010 does not seem to affect the matter at all; but the issue of the proceeds of the sale of the house might do so, and on that basis she granted permission.

At the hearing before us, without objection from Ms Gough or the Tribunal, Mr Caskie relied on all the financial strands of the grounds. He did his very best with them, but in our judgment he entirely failed to show any proper basis upon which it could be said that the First-tier Tribunal Judge erred in law or that, in any event, the appeal ought to have been allowed on the maintenance issue.