My Thai wife's UK visa is due for renewal in September.She should have her ESOL qualification by then and we hope to apply for permanent leave to remain.The problem is her Thai passport expires in September,we have contacted the Thai embassy in London and the earliest appointment to renew it is 03/09/2010.As the turnaround time is 4 to 6 weeks this means her passport would be in Thailand when we have to renew her UK visa.Any advice would be greatly appreciated;I can't find any reference to this problem on the Border Agency website.

There is no requirement to pay the exorbitant fee to transfer one's ILR stamp to a new passport once the passport it was originally placed in has expired. Therefore, I suspect that there will not be a problem if her passport expires whilst it is with the UKBA during the processing of her application (which can take up to 6 months!). I also suspect that it would not be a problem if her passport expired before submitting the application.

However, that is pure supposition on my part, as like yourself I cannot find any guidance on this point. Hopefully someone will be able to confirm , or you could contact the UKBA direct (see under Immigration enquiry bureau on this page.

As she can apply up to 28 days before the second anniversary of her arrival in the UK (or expiry of FLR if that's her situation) then I suggest that you submit the application as soon as possible.

You could make an appointment for her to apply in person, hopefully before her passport expires, but the fee for this is £1095 (compared to the fee for a postal application which is high enough at £840!). See "Making an application" from Completing application form SET(M).

As said, once she has ILR there is no need to transfer her ILR stamp every time she renews her passport, she simply carries both old and new passports to present to UK immigration when required. So once she has her ILR she can then arrange to renew her passport through the RTE.