Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2024-000310

First-tier Tribunal No: HU/50820/2023
LH/04757/2023

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:

On 11th of September 2025

Before

DEPUTY UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE CONNAL

Between

ANXHELA BEGTESHI
(NO ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Mr Islam, Counsel, instructed by Qualified Legal Solicitors Limited
For the Respondent: Mr Walker, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Field House by Cloud Video Platform on 22 May 2025

DECISION AND REASONS
Introduction
1. The Appellant appeals, with the permission of the Upper Tribunal, the decision of the First-tier Tribunal dated 29 November 2023 (the “FTT Decision”), following a hearing which took place on 26 October 2023. In the FTT Decision, the First-tier Tribunal Judge (the “Judge”) dismissed the Appellant’s appeal against the Respondent’s refusal of her application for leave to remain in the United Kingdom based on her family and private life. The Respondent’s decision was made on 11 January 2023.
2. Permission to appeal was granted by the Upper Tribunal on 21 February 2025.
Anonymity
3. No anonymity direction was made previously, and there is no reason for one now.
Factual background
4. The Appellant applied, on 23 December 2022, for leave to remain in the UK on the basis of her private and family life. At the date of application, the Appellant was 17 years old. The Appellant’s parents and her brother had moved to the UK and resided here under the EU Settlement Scheme. The Appellant entered the UK on a visit visa on 18 December 2022.
5. The Appellant’s application was refused by the Respondent in a decision dated 11 January 2023 on the basis that the Appellant failed to meet the requirements of the Immigration Rules, and the refusal was not a disproportionate breach of the Appellant’s Article 8 rights. That decision was reviewed on 10 August 2023, however the Respondent maintained the decision (and raised an additional ground of refusal in relation to Appendix FM of the Immigration Rules), and confirmed that it was not accepted that the Appellant enjoyed family life, in the context of Article 8, with her parents in the UK, and it was not accepted that Article 8(1) was engaged.
The FTT Decision
6. At the First-tier Tribunal hearing, both parties were represented, and the Judge heard oral evidence from the Appellant and from the Appellant’s parents, before hearing submissions from the representatives.
7. In the FTT Decision, the Judge found that Article 8(1) was engaged, with respect to both the Appellant’s family life with her parents, and her private life established in the UK. The Judge further found that: the Respondent’s decision interfered with the Appellant’s Article 8 rights; the interference was of sufficient gravity as to potentially engage the operation of Article 8; but the decision was one that was lawfully open to the Respondent to make and was in pursuit of the legitimate aim of immigration control. The Judge therefore moved on to consider proportionality.
8. The Judge noted that the starting point was to determine whether the Appellant met the requirements of the Immigration Rules. The Judge recorded that the Appellant’s representative had confirmed that the Appellant would not be pursuing an argument under the Immigration Rules because she could not meet the requirements of Appendix FM. The Judge found, when considering Paragraph 276ADE(1)(vi), that the Appellant had failed to show that there would be very significant obstacles to her integration on return. The Judge then considered whether there were circumstances over and above the Rules which would cause the balance to tip in the Appellant’s favour, and concluded that the weight attached to the public interest outweighed the weight attached to the Appellant’s family and private life, and that the Respondent’s decision therefore did not amount to a disproportionate interference with the Appellant’s Article 8 rights.
The appeal to the Upper Tribunal
9. In summary, the Appellant challenged the FTT Decision on the following grounds:
a. Ground 1 – The Judge, at [14], failed to provide adequate reasons for the findings, by failing to set out what the “clear inconsistencies in the evidence” were that the Judge had relied on, as well as failing to consider, in the round with anxious scrutiny, the consistent explanatory evidence provided by the Appellant that the residential address in issue was the same address with slight alteration; and
b. Ground 2 – The Judge, at [16], failed to set out, or apply, the correct test for showing very significant obstacles to integration, when finding that the Appellant had failed to show that she met the requirements of Paragraph 276ADE(1)(vi).
10. Permission to appeal was granted on both grounds.
11. The Respondent did not file a Rule 24 response.
The error of law hearing
12. The matter comes before the Upper Tribunal to determine whether the decision contains an error of law and, if it is so concluded, to either re-make the decision or remit the appeal to the First-tier Tribunal to do so. A bundle was submitted by the Appellant containing, among other documents, the core documents in the appeal, including the Appellant’s and the Respondent’s bundles before the First-tier Tribunal. The Appellant also submitted a skeleton argument.
13. The hearing was attended by representatives for both parties as recorded above. At the outset of the hearing, I invited Mr Walker to briefly confirm the Respondent’s position. Mr Walker advised the Tribunal that the Respondent conceded that the Judge had made a material error of law as set out in the Appellant’s Ground 1. This was because, at [14] of the FTT Decision, the Judge had stated that there were inconsistencies in the evidence but had failed to go on to state what those consistencies were and, because of this, the Appellant did not know why her appeal had failed. Mr Walker and Mr Islam both submitted that, in light of the Respondent’s position on Ground 1, Ground 2 fell away. No request was made for any of the findings in the FTT Decision to be preserved.
14. I communicated that I was prepared to accept the concession of the Respondent regarding Ground 1, which I would not seek to go behind. I consider that the concession was properly made. In considering Paragraph 276ADE(1)(vi), the Judge referred, at [14], to there being “clear inconsistencies in the evidence given by the appellant and her parents”, in particular regarding the Appellant’s living arrangements before coming to the UK. This was a live issue as the Respondent did not accept that the Appellant had lived with her parents when they left for the UK, nor that the Appellant lived at the family home (see, for example, [8(c)] of the Respondent’s review). However, the Judge did not provide any brief examples of the inconsistencies that the Judge relied on at [14] of the FTT Decision, meaning that the Appellant is unable to understand why her position was rejected. I further find, in agreement with both parties, that in these circumstances it is not necessary to deal further with the Appellant’s Ground 2.
15. In relation to the disposal of the matter, Mr Walker and Mr Islam were both in agreement that the appeal should be remitted back to the First-tier Tribunal to be heard de novo. I communicated my agreement with that proposal.
16. The decision is to be set aside in its entirety pursuant to section 12(2)(a) of the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007. Having regard to the decisions of the Presidential Panel in AB (preserved FtT findings; Wisniewski principles) Iraq [2020] UKUT 268 (IAC) and Begum (Remaking or remittal) Bangladesh [2023] UKUT 00046 (IAC), the appropriate course is for the appeal to be remitted to the First-tier Tribunal for hearing afresh, with no findings preserved.
Notice of Decision
1. The decision of the First-tier Tribunal contains a material error on a point of law, and is set aside.
2. The appeal is remitted to the First-tier Tribunal for hearing afresh, by a judge other than Judge Young-Harry. No findings are preserved.
3. The parties will be notified of a fresh hearing date in due course.

L.C. Connal
Deputy Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber
1 September 2025