Tribunal decisions

The decision

IN THE UPPER TRIBUNAL
IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM CHAMBER
Case No: UI-2025-000773

First-tier Tribunal No: HU/63885/2023
LH/06732/2024

THE IMMIGRATION ACTS

Decision & Reasons Issued:
On 17th of October 2025

Before

UPPER TRIBUNAL JUDGE LANDES

Between

SARUN GURUNG
(NO ANONYMITY ORDER MADE)
Appellant
and

ENTRY CLEARANCE OFFICER
Respondent

Representation:
For the Appellant: Ms Revill, Counsel instructed by Everest Law Solicitors Ltd
For the Respondent: Mr Lawson, Senior Home Office Presenting Officer

Heard at Birmingham Civil Justice Centre on 19 August 2025

DECISION AND REASONS
1. The appellant is a citizen of Nepal now aged 19. He applied at the age of 17 to enter the UK as the child of his mother the sponsor, who has been in the UK since 2022 with indefinite leave. The entry clearance officer refused the application on the principal basis that the appellant had not shown that the sponsor had had sole responsibility for his upbringing, considering that the documents indicated that the appellant was still in the care of his biological father, or if not the care had been relinquished solely for the purposes of making the application. The entry clearance officer also refused the application for inadequacy of maintenance.
Background
2. The appellant appealed, but his appeal was dismissed by the First-Tier Tribunal (“the FTJ”). The FTJ dismissed the appeal, not being satisfied on the balance of probabilities that the sponsor had sole responsibility within the meaning of immigration rules at the time of the application. He also found (which does not appear to be controversial) that there were no serious and compelling family or other considerations which make exclusion of the child undesirable, and that the decision was not unjustifiably harsh. He made no finding on maintenance.
3. At [12] – [14] of the decision the FTJ summarised the documents explaining that although there is a letter from the appellant’s father saying that he used to look after the appellant, the appellant and sponsor dispute that he ever did and that although when the appellant lived in his paternal grandmother’s house, his father was there, he was not involved and usually drunk. However various documents recorded the appellant and his father’s address as the same. He explained that a letter purporting to be from the agent who prepared the application had said that he had made mistakes which had portrayed the appellant wrongly as being cared for by his father at recent material times and that “there are also various uncontroversial documents regarding the Appellant’s education.”
4. At [16] the FTJ explained that it was for the appellant to show that the documents he had submitted were reliable and set out the respondent’s case. [17] is the critical paragraph. It reads (I have emboldened the sentence which is specifically challenged):
“The Sponsor asserts that she makes all material decisions for the Appellant but the evidence of what this means in practice is not clear. The Sponsor says that the documentary evidence and information in the application about the Appellant’s residence with his father should not be believed, and the agent made “mistakes”. But the explanation does not explain why the ‘mistaken’ documents and information presented a fairly consistent picture of the Appellant’s situation before the application, which does not support the claim that his father was not involved. I find that the evidence does not reach the balance of probabilities that the Sponsor had sole responsibility within the meaning of the Immigration Rules at the time of application.”
Grounds; discussion and conclusions
5. Grounds 1 and 2 should be taken together. Ground 1 avers that contrary to the emboldened sentence there was an explanation, and although the FTJ was not required to accept it, the FTJ was required to engage with it and explain why it had been rejected. There was an explanation because the appellant had adduced a signed letter from the agent accepting responsibility for the mistakes and drafting the sponsor’s letter using a template for another client, and the illiterate sponsor had signed it. The agent also explained that the appellant’s father’s address had been wrongly given on the application form as the appellant’s address. The explanation was said to be supported by the sponsor’s witness statement that official documents would always record a father’s “village address” for a child, regardless of where the child lived and that the father would not have bothered with the contents of his letter (the grounds point out that the letter was signed by thumb prints, suggesting the father was illiterate).
6. Ground 2 avers that the FTJ failed to have regard to material evidence. The FTJ described the education documents as “uncontroversial”, but they showed that the appellant was studying in Pokhara in 2023 not in Kathmandu where his father lived. A letter from a local shopkeeper (in Pokhara) also explained that she had known the appellant for many years and had never seen him in the shop with his father but rather with his cousin brother.
7. Ms Revill developed the grounds in the hearing by saying that the documents in the bundle showed that the letter written for the sponsor by the agent was indeed wrong. The letter suggested that the appellant had been under the guardianship of his father and his paternal grandparents, and the grandparents were preventing the sponsor from getting in touch, but their death certificates showed that the appellant’s paternal grandfather had died in 1993 (before his birth) and his grandmother had died in 2019. Ms Revill conceded that of course the FTJ was not bound to accept the sponsor’s explanation, but he had to explain why he rejected it. There was no explanation. The sponsor had given evidence at the hearing, and the FTJ did not explain why that evidence had been disbelieved. The letter from the school and the shopkeeper suggested that the appellant was in Pokhara (rather than with his father in Kathmandu) in 2023 before the application and the FTJ, should, she submitted, at least have considered those documents.
8. Mr Lawson referred to the rule 24 response which explained that the FTJ acknowledged the appellant and sponsor’s case and that the agent had said that he had made mistakes. The FTJ had assessed the evidence as a whole and had given adequate reasons for rejecting the explanation. The response also explained that the FTJ’s findings about the educational documents were adequate in the light of the appellant’s witness statement that he had lived in Kathmandu in the same house as his father at different stages of his education. Mr Lawson added that the FTJ had evidently considered the documentary evidence and did not have to list every single document. He had made reasonable findings on the evidence. The grounds were simply a disagreement with the findings.
9. Ms Revill concluded that of course it was right that the FTJ did not have to list every document or go through every document, but he should engage with documents which could materially have made a difference. If he rejected a document which apparently assisted the appellant’s case, then the appellant needed to know why.
10. As I made clear at the hearing, I have found this case difficult. It is obviously trite law that a judge does not have to mention every specific piece of evidence; equally I should be slow to infer that a point has not been taken into account and not assume a misdirection simply because every step in the reasoning has not been fully set out; the basis for reaching a decision can be set out by inference for example (see Ullah v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2024] EWCA Civ 201 – one of many cases setting out the well-known principles).
11. There do indeed appear to be contradictions in the evidence and on assessing the evidence as a whole, a judge may well have been entitled to conclude that he was simply not satisfied as to the real position. The FTJ made passing reference to this when considering whether there were exceptional circumstances which rendered the decision unjustifiably harsh at [19] “the Appellant’s genuine situation has not been proved.” I have considered whether this was all the FTJ was in fact concluding earlier in his decision.
12. The difficulty is that the reason the FTJ gave for rejecting the sponsor’s explanation and therefore rejecting her and the appellant’s case on sole responsibility was that the explanation did not explain why the “mistaken” documents and information presented a consistent picture of the situation. However on the face of it, when considering together the agent’s letter explaining the mistakes, the sponsor’s witness statement (and oral evidence) that the appellant’s father would not have bothered with what was said in his letter, the appellant’s statement that he did not read the father’s letter, and the sponsor’s explanation in her witness statement (and oral evidence) that the appellant’s address is simply listed as the village address of his father in official documents, there is an explanation for why the “mistaken” documents and information present a fairly consistent picture. The education documents which the FTJ described as “uncontroversial” also support the appellant’s case that he was living in Pokhara rather than with his father shortly before the application. As Ms Revill has said, the grandparents’ death certificates also support the fact that the letter the agent prepared for the sponsor was mistaken as the agent has conceded.
13. I consider that the FTJ did not engage with the overall explanation given by the appellant and sponsor or give adequate reasons for rejecting that explanation. He was not bound of course to accept the explanation, but contrary to his findings there was an explanation why the documents seemed to present a consistent picture. It was an error therefore simply to reject the explanation on the basis he did without more reasoning.
14. Taken together therefore, grounds 1 and 2 are made out. Ground 3 is also made out (although of course it is only material because the other grounds are made out).
15. The representatives agreed that if there was an error, the decision needed to be remitted to the First-Tier Tribunal for remaking given the extent of fact-finding necessary. That must be right.
Notice of Decision
The judge’s decision contains errors of law and is set aside.
The decision is remitted to the First-Tier Tribunal to be decided by another judge, with no findings preserved.
Directions
A Nepali interpreter will be required for the hearing in the First-Tier Tribunal. Any further directions necessary will be given by the First-Tier Tribunal.

A-R Landes

Judge of the Upper Tribunal
Immigration and Asylum Chamber

7 October 2025