Marta Mendiondo
Head of Immigration | London
Employment
About Marta:
Marta has 18 years’ experience in immigration and nationality law, having previously worked as a visa and passport officer for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Home Office in the British Embassies in Moscow, Rome and Madrid. She has worked in the private sector for ten years, assisting both companies and individuals, with a special focus on Spanish and Latin American clients.
Marta is able to advise on all aspects of UK immigration law. The majority of her recent work has revolved around post-Brexit migration routes for EEA nationals, companies seeking to obtain licences to sponsor foreign employees, Skilled Workers, Global Talent and Investors.
Marta deals principally with applications made via European Union law and the EU Settlement Scheme, family and Human Rights based applications via domestic immigration law, Investors, Sponsor Licences and Skilled Workers, Students matters, and applications for British Citizenship via naturalisation and registration.
Highly experienced in advising senior executives in the past, she identifies the best way forward given each client’s unique circumstances, and always applying a practical approach.
She speaks Spanish and Italian.
Experience:
- Assisted a domestic worker in obtaining leave to remain in the UK with her employer, based on her right to a private and family life, and due to compelling circumstances. She had no family of her own in the UK, and had only lived in the country a few months prior to the application.
- Assisted the former family member of an EEA in correcting an erroneous decision by the Home Office, securing his immediate settlement under the EEA rules instead of the much more expensive and demanding ten-year private life route, and subsequently obtaining British Citizenship in the space of six months.
- Overturned a ten year travel ban for a client who had been refused four visit visas and been accused of deception in her previous applications, securing her the possibility of returning to the UK as a visitor with her UK born daughter.
- Successfully argued why the Home Office should waive a mandatory tuberculosis screening test for a client who had omitted it when applying for a spouse visa, avoiding a refusal and facilitating immediate travel to the UK for the family to be reunited and for their baby to be born in the UK soon after.
- Numerous successful complex nationality and visa applications, with thorough knowledge of the ever-changing Home Office requirements and submission processes.
- Marta has successfully secured UK residency rights for many EEA clients no longer living in the UK, and whose eligibility was in question by the Home Office. Applicants were relying on periods of historical residence as far back as the 1990s, successfully arguing cases for the main applicants and their dependant children.
Memberships:
- Member of ILPA
- Member of the Spanish Chamber of Commerce
