We are just scared to death. We have been trying to obtain our residence through Burlow and Spencer. My partner (de facto partner) is Italian. We are currently running the fourth attempt to gain residence in the UK with B&S. We feel the assistance we received from Burlow and Spencer was just unacceptable, at least for our standards. Our first application was refused (the first time). B&S charged us another £2500 approximately for the re-submission. We paid the first £2000 approx fee to learn then we have to pay another £2500 approx. Both payments made in one single instalment and on the same respective days. After the first refusal, they told us the situation was extremely delicate, and they pushed us to pay the next full amount. You can't imagine the stress we had to go through. When you are in a situation like the one we went through you are incredibly vulnerable. We are a couple that has been together for long years. We had an interview on that day. B&S set up a meeting with a solicitor that was not informed about our case. We had to re-explain everything from scratch. He helped us filling the forms we re-sent the papers ourselves. This time we sent them without having completed the payment details for the home office to take the money out of our account for the processing fees -£65 appox.- All after we have completed the form in front of a B&S solicitor. When the application was refused the second time, they blamed it on us for not having filled the payment section. B&S tried to charge us again £2500, by all means, telling us that if we didn't pay the fees back, we were taking the risk of being deported. I was firm this time, and I said I wasn't going to pay any more for this terrible service and I said we should have been advised better on how to fill the form. The form should have been revised before being sent instead of leaving us all stressed up and trying to fill the documents on our own and the same day -something that we have paid B&S to help us with - by that time, already £4500!- Fortunately, one of the advisors acknowledged the situation was a bit tricky, and they agreed to make the application again for us at no extra charge. This time WE worked very hard on it. We gathered testimonials etc. The testimonies were something WE discovered we should do by reading all documents carefully. This third time and out of desperation, we started learning about the whole process ourselves. Then we realised testimonials are indeed essential, so we added them. When we called B&S asking for their advice on adding testimonials, they said the Home Office wasn't going to care about them. Finally, the residence got refused for the third time. We received the usual call from B&S this time prompting us to pay again so they could submit, for the first time, the form directly from their firm. I answered, no, "I'm not paying any more for your services". Then one of the advisors suggested they could do it for free. We agreed to allow them to do it one more time... They advised us a solicitor was going to give us a call. The solicitor that called us knew nothing about the case! He was asking us if we sent any documents at all. You can imagine how we felt. I said: "Please check our folder and call us again. We are making the effort of paying for your professional advice, but for you to be able to do so, you need to analyse the case first; otherwise, we will have our residence rejected all over again." To which he answered, don't worry, I will take a look and get back to you. He never called again.a Finally, I started calling myself to recover my documents, and they answered: "your caseworker will call you later today". They did this two times. I called again, and I said: "Please give us back our documents and most importantly, our passports, we have been left without any identity documents" To which they answered: "Your caseworker has already uploaded your documents and they don't have them anymore" I was shocked and petrified. They were expecting us to print our passports! At that point, we had no supporting documents and no passports. At that point I was facing the worst situation in my life; this firm had left us with no way of accrediting our identity. These lawyers have managed our case irresponsibly, and we didn't know what else to do… It was then when we felt all was lost, and we posted the review above. This review was then visible on many review sites. Then, Riaz called me. He was agitated and said my behaviour was unacceptable. I explained to him that we felt very vulnerable and that's why we didn't know how to obtain a call from a responsible individual who can help us. I said I was very thankful for his call and I felt sad I needed to post a review to get a professional call from the firm finally. He offered to submit our application directly from the firm. OUr assigned professional was Mr James Short. James Short sounded very professional and down to earth. He gave us, what we thought was beneficial advice and we proceed to send him all the documents he requested from us. We then received an email from him asking if we have sent him our bank statements. We said we were not sure, but if we were informed about these documents being missing, we would indeed have sent them again. Then we asked if they still needed these documents or if they have sent the application at all. The latter email was the last one received from James Short -dated 12.02.2018- Since then we sent emails to James Short and Riaz on the 13th, 18th, 19th, 23rd of February and 29th of March and 5th of May. We received no written answer. We also called the office at B&S. Different people called us back confirming they have sent our documents on the 18th of January, and then on the 22nd of January. We have no information about the bank statements and their inclusion in the application. We have no written confirmation of the documents being sent at all. At the moment we have no passports, no tracking number of visa application, neither of our documents. B&S and Riaz individually wouldn't contact us; no one sent us any certificate prooving our documents are safe or located in any particular office. We are vulnerable, and we don't know what else we can do. We are sad and worried about all the people that might have hired B&S and might be going through the same. Just a real shame.