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Hi Marion & Bob
Welcome to poms in oz, this is a lovely site, with some really helpful people on it who are really nice and supportive as well.
I noticed that you are applying through the spouse visa route. We have just posted our application off for a spouse visa (although we applied through defacto) and are in the process of Carl having his medicals done. I noticed that you had been advised to wait 5 years from when you were married. I don't think you have to wait that long as the criteria on the application is that you have to prove that you have been together in a relationship for at least 12 months, if you can prove you have been together for at least 5 years then they by-pass the tempory 2 year visa and issue a permenant visa straight away. We have been together for 7 years and lived together for 6, and are getting married this November. We did the application ourselves, as it really isn't that difficult, the form is easy and just general info, it is the collection of information that takes time, and writing statements about the history of your relationship that we found to be time consuming. We read though the help book and we had to apply for as if we were married, just had to tick the defacto boxes, and we found the booklet to be really helpfull. As we were going along, I was worried that we hadn't provided enough, but we just sent anything that proved we had been together. We sent it off a couple of weeks ago and within 2 days they had emailed Carl to say go for your medical and to ring them and they basically said as long as the medical is fine then they will issue him with a visa and it would be a permenant one.
Have you had a look at the spouse visa application form to see whether you think you could do it yourself? (and save a bit of money!!) And the time frame is I believe about 3 months if you don't front load it (we did with the police check, but waited to be told for the meds).
I don't know if this is any help to you or not but just thought I would let you know what we did, and we found this site to be very useful from other peoples experiences.
Good luck with everything and let me know if I can be of any further help
heidi & carl
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