johnbshepherd
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Hi palaceboy1 If you apply for the 804 visa while you are already legitimately in Australia you should get bridging visas which will allow you to stay in Australia until the 804 application is settled one way or the other. The snag is that you may end up waiting longer for the 804 visa than you would have for the 103. For the 804 it will be about a year before you even have a queue date.What follows is a quote from the latest update from immigration about waiting times for the 103 and 804 visas. From this you can calculate that if you apply for the 804 right now you will reach the front of the queue in about seven years time. For the 103 visa it will be about seven years after whatever your queue date is. Take no notice of the estimated waiting times on the DIBP website which claim anything up to thirty years. These estimates seem to be deliberately exaggerated. Begin quote ONSHORE APPLICANTS (Subclass 804). Once your application is allocated to a case officer (which may take up to 12 months) you or your authorised contact will be contacted and asked to provide more documents including police certificates and health clearances to complete your application. As soon as you are assessed as meeting all requirements your application will be placed in a queue and assigned a queue date to wait for a visa place. We are currently assessing for a queue date applications lodged up to 17 February 2015 We are currently assessing for finalization applications with a queue date up to May 2009 OFFSHORE APPLICANTS (Subclass 103) Once your application is allocated to a case officer (which may take up to 18 months) your eligibility for a visa will be assessed and if you are found to meet eligibility requirements your application will be placed in a queue and assigned a queue date to wait for a visa place. We are currently assessing for a queue date applications lodged 1 October 2014 We are currently assessing for finalization applications with a queue date up to February 2009
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Yes, but it's not quite that simple is it?. Most parents will have some sort of income from the UK by the time that they get to the Aussie retirement age, even if it's just the UK State pension. The Aussie age pension reduces by 50 cents per fortnight for each dollar earned over $160 per fortnight. see http://www.humanservices.gov.au/customer/enablers/income-test-pensions Even the basic UK state pension is equivalent to more than twice this amount and a fairly small occupational pension, or reasonable savings, can easily push you over the limit of around 25,000 pounds per year. If your income is above this the Aussie age pension is zero so your "investment" return is zero. For aged parents - those over the Australian retirement age - the best bet is still the 804 visa. Have your parents come to visit you on holiday and if they like it here they can apply for the 804 visa. All being well they will then get a bridging visa which will allow them to stay here until the 804 application is finally settled. I know that immigration says that the waiting time for the 804 is up to 30 years but I doubt whether this is true. For non-aged parents the total of around $100,000 per couple needs a lot of thinking about.
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For the 103 visa the second installment has to be paid after you have passed the second medical and submitted police certificates etc. Along with fixing up the Assurance of Support it is the last step before they actually award the visa. When this will happen depends on your queue date. At the moment they are processing 103 applications with queue dates in April 2008 but it has been stuck at that date since early August. The immigration website at the moment claims that the waiting time for the 103 visa could be as much as 30 years after the queue date but I would take that estimate with a large pinch of salt. Up to now the waiting time has been 6-8 years but the allocated number of 103 places was reduced this year so the waiting time is likely to increase - not as much as 30 years though.
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The 143 (contributory Parent) and 864 (Contributory Aged Parent) visas are Permanent Residence visas. If you hold one of these you are entitled to full Medicare from day one. The same applies to the (now closed) 804 visa. I am not sure about the temporary versions of the visas. Medicare is about equivalent to NHS cover in the UK, with a few minor differences. The only relevance of the RHCA with the UK is if you visit back to the UK. Like any other person covered by Medicare you are entitled to basic NHS cover whilst visiting the UK. Regards
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Hi Deesydney It sounds as if two different people wrote the two paragraphs you quote! The Immigration Dept , under its various names, has a history of exaggerating the waiting time for the non-contributory parent visas - perhaps to encourage people to apply for the contributory versions. I had a queue date of May 2007 for the 804 visa and when I joined the queue I was told that I would have to wait twenty years or more before I heard from them again. In fact I actually got the visa in December last year - less than seven years after the queue date. Other people I know had similar experiences with both the 804 and 103 visas. If they are already processing people with queue dates in March 2008 your mum would have about 4-5 more years to wait. It is really up to you whether you think that the shorter waiting time for the contributory visa is worth around $50,000. Take little notice of the queue date calculator by the way. It still says that there are several hundred people ahead of me in the queue even though I already have the visa Cheers
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I'm not sure that I follow the reasoning here. If the initial £3000 is hard to swallow, what about the additional A$87,200 which you will have to pay (for both parents) as the second installment for the 143 visa? To say nothing of the A$14,000 which you lose the use of for 10 years. The 143 visa is a really expensive alternative to the 103
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I would think carefully before giving up your mum's position in the queue for the 103 visa. It all depends on what her queue date is. In February this year, people with queue dates in December 2007 reached the front of the queue and probably have their visas by now. Since then, two relevant things have happened. The first was that the allocation of visas for 2013-14 ran out so no more 103 visas will be awarded until the new year begins on July 1. The second is that the total allocation of non-contributory parent visas was reduced from about 2250 in 2013-14 to 1500 in 2014-15. Of course new applications were stopped altogether but this does not affect people who are already in the queue. Even allowing for the reduction in allocation, if your mum had a queue date in 2008 or 2009 she would probably have reached the front of the queue within two years - about the same waiting time as for the contributory visas. If her queue date is later than 2009, as it almost certainly is, the waiting time will be longer but I doubt whether it will be as long as ten years, despite what immigration (and the queue date calculator) say. You have to decide for yourself whether the reduced waiting time for the contributory visa is worth the extra $50,000 or so which you have to pay. Cheers
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Don't worry! For the last few years people have been waiting about 2-3 years between the initial acknowledgement and the next stage - medicals and police clearance certificates. Provided those are OK you will eventually be allocated a queue date. As you probably know, new applications for the 804 were suspended on June 2 this year but if you have the acknowledgement letter you are in the pipeline. You probably know also that if you take the acknowledgement letter to the local Medicare office you can get a reciprocal Medicare card - provided you are from the UK that is. Cheers John
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The RHCA card covers you only for conditions which arise after you arrive in Australia and which need immediate treatment. This made no difference to me; I only ever go to the Doctor if I need immediate treatment. Anyway, you probably would not pass the initial medical for the 804 visa in the first place if you had a serious pre-existing medical condition. Some expensive drugs are not covered and some long-term treatments - like kidney dialysis - are problematical on the RHCA card. Regarding the question asked by Gilly333 I'm afraid that the British OAP is frozen as soon as you get the bridging visa. Regarding the points made by Alan Colette he is perfectly correct that if condition 8503 is applied to your visitor visa then you will be unable to apply for the 804 visa. The issues surrounding this point have been discussed at great length on a sister site at http://www.pomsinadelaide.com/forum/adelaide-migration-issues/4509-cheap-parent-visas-part-i.html The whole thread is worth reading carefully if you are interested in the 804 visa. If you arrive in Australia with the genuine intention of visiting relatives - i.e. with a return ticket and no great volume of baggage - then there is no reason why condition 8503 should be applied. If you change your mind while you are here, there is nothing illegal about that. In fact you can only apply for the 804 visa if you are legitimately in Australia for some other purpose. How else are elderly people to be legitimately in Australia if they are not here as visitors? Nevertheless, I take the point and will say no more. If anyone wants to share my experience please feel free to contact me by PM. I am not an expert on the subject but I can at least share my own experience. Cheers Cheers
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Just to clarify this point, applicants for the 804 visa are indeed entitled to a Medicare card under the Reciprocal Health Care Agreement with the UK - that is, provided that they were resident in the UK immediately before coming to Australia, The RHCA card does not provide the same benefits as a full Medicare card but we managed perfectly well on it (without private insurance) for the final five years of our wait for the 804 visa. Cheers
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I was on the 410 visa until last December. I applied for the 804 visa in September 2006 and got the visa on December 16 2013 - total waiting time a little over seven years. One distinct advantage of being in the queue for the 804 is that you become entitled to an RHCA Medicare card. We relied on it totally during the waiting period and got just as good treatment as we did before then with private insurance. At the moment there are tax advantages to being on the 410 visa but there are proposals in the most recent UK budget to remove them. Total cost for the 804 including medical tests is around $8,000. For comparison the tota cost for the Contributory Parent visa is around $100,000 but the waiting time is much less (1 - 2 years). Incidentally your parents can keep the 410 visa while they are waiting for a decision on the 804.
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It could be because the queue date calculator is inaccurate. In January this year they were processing 103 applicants with queue dates in December 2006. This suggests that the waiting time for the 103 visa is only a few months longer than the waiting time for the 804. Perhaps we could hear from someone who recently got the 103 visa. Added later I've checked my source and the above is not quite correct. In January they were processing 804 applications with queue dates in January 2008. For the 103 visa they were processing people with queue dates in December 2007. This means that the waiting times for the two visas are almost identical at the moment. Cheers
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You probably qualify for the Aged Parent visa (class 804), Contributory Aged Parent visa (class 864) or Contributory Aged Parent visa (Temporary, class 884). The pros and cons of these visas are a trade-off between cost and waiting time. The contributory visas (864 and 884) are expensive, but the waiting time is fairly short (about 18 months for the 864 I believe). Current costs and conditions for the 864 visa are here http://www.immi.gov.au/Visas/Pages/864.aspx Cost is about $100,000 for a couple. The 884 visa allows you to postpone some of this cost for two years The 804 visa is less than one tenth of the cost but the waiting time is currently 7 - 8 years (NOT 13 years as it says on the immi.gov website). Details are here http://www.immi.gov.au/Visas/Pages/804.aspx For either of these visas you must apply while you are already in Australia. What most people do is to come and visit their relatives on tourist visas (with a return ticket) and take a look around to see if they like it here. If they do like it they can change their minds about going back home and apply for one of the Aged Parent visas. If the application is OK then they will get a bridging visa A which will allow them to stay in Australia until the substantive application is settled one way or the other. During the waiting period it is possible to visit back to the UK occasionally. The procedure is fairly straightforward but if you have doubts about it then by all means consult a registered migration agent - there are plenty of them on this site who are eager to help (at a cost of course). I recently completed the whole process for the 804 visa without problems. Cheers
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The latest information I have is that they are currently (April 2014) processing people with queue dates in March 2008 but that will probably use up the allocation for 2013-14. The allocation for 2014-15 will be announced in the budget in July. Stick with it! The wait will be over before you know it. Cheers
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Take care with the queue date calculator! The calculator for the 804 (Aged Parent) visa was completely out of action for the same 9 months. It is now generating numbers again but there is something fishy about the numbers. For example, it says that there are still 400 people in front of me which would suggest that I have about another year to wait. In fact, I reached the front of the queue in September last year and actually got the visa in December. Total waiting time was a little over seven years even though the immi.gov site says that the waiting time for this visa is thirteen years or so. Cheers