OA180022012

The appellant is a citizen of Pakistan born on 18 January 1947. On 12 March 2012, she applied for entry clearance under para 317 of the Immigration Rules (HC 395 as amended) to settle in the UK with her son, Mr Shanah Umeed who is a British citizen. On 28 August 2012, the Entry Clearance Officer refused the appellant�s application.

At para 15(vi) the judge made the crucial finding in relation to para 317(iii) as follows:

�The Appellant�s total monthly outlay, therefore, on food, electricity, gas, telephone and medicine is some �300 (say �180 for food, �155.62 for utilities and �65 for medicine). Added to that will be some clothing expenditure. Even being as generous as allowing in the figures given by the witnesses for which there was no supporting evidence (i.e. food and medicine) and their estimates of the average utility bills, the Appellant herself provides the monies from her pension for well over half of her costs.�

As a consequence, the judge found that the appellant was not �wholly or mainly� financially dependent on the sponsor and dismissed the appeal.

The appellant sought permission to appeal on a number of grounds including that the judge had made a simple arithmetical error in para 15(vi) of his determination. The appellant�s monthly outlay was not �some �300� but rather was some ��400� when the figures for food, utilities and medicine were added together. Consequently, since the appellant�s pension was only �168.93 she was �mainly� financially dependent on her son to make up the shortfall to �400. On 9 September 2012, the First-tier Tribunal (Judge W L Grant) granted the appellant permission to appeal. Thus, the appeal came before me.