Hi Jo,
I'm new to the forum but saw that you've been thru the CPV and ur thru the other side still smiling, so hope u don't mind me asking a couple of q's and saying hello...
we've got a migration officer (but don't feel as comfy asking him these questions...)
he lodged our visa application in sept 06, last week we finally heard it's being "processed" PURE JOY!!and they've deducted the money from my credit card...so does that mean I've got a case officer then?? and roughly how long after them starting to process do u get the medical and police check request...and then how long til u actually get it granted?? Just from your experience..sorry, I know ur not a migation agent LOL!! Just nice to hear from someone who's been thru its experience...the waiting is killing us...(well more me, I have less patience than hubby and can't wait to be back in oz)
Next step once we are there is to go thru my parents...so similar to you!!
Thanks for listening...Hope ur enjoying life out there...
Hi Jo,
I'm new to the forum but saw that you've been thru the CPV and ur thru the other side still smiling, so hope u don't mind me asking a couple of q's and saying hello...
we've got a migration officer (but don't feel as comfy asking him these questions...)
he lodged our visa application in sept 06, last week we finally heard it's being "processed" PURE JOY!!and they've deducted the money from my credit card...so does that mean I've got a case officer then?? and roughly how long after them starting to process do u get the medical and police check request...and then how long til u actually get it granted?? Just from your experience..sorry, I know ur not a migation agent LOL!! Just nice to hear from someone who's been thru its experience...the waiting is killing us...(well more me, I have less patience than hubby and can't wait to be back in oz)
Next step once we are there is to go thru my parents...so similar to you!!
Thanks for listening...Hope ur enjoying life out there...
Clare
in London but dreaming of Bellingen...
Hi Clare
Welcome to Poms i Oz.
My Mum got her Contributory Parent visa last year. The Randpms now have theirs too, which is brill.
Jo's Mum & Dad are now into the final stages of the processing. They'll get their visas in Feb or so, I reckon. (NOT long to wait now, Caz.)
You say you submitted your own application in Sept 2006?????!!!! Do you mean Sept 2007?
Which visa have you applied for, hun?
If you want any gen about helping your Parents, sing out, but for the minute I would say let us get your own visa tucked up in bed. It is too confusing to try to deal with the criteria for more than one visa at a time, in my view.
Yep, def lodged in Sept 06!! Been waiting since 04 to apply, then all paperwork done and lodged in Sept 06. We're applying for 103 - contr. parent visa!
Our agent mistakenly lodged us for the 143 - normal parent visa (think communication broke down somewhere between us), then in Jan 07, I double checked with him and he changed us over to a 103... so maybe that's been our hold up!!??
Last Thurs he said it was being processed and credit card would be debited - but am left wondering what next...not sure if the fact it's being processed means we have case officer..
Yeah, will not even think about parents until i'm well settled, got enough to do when i get there!!!
thanks again for ur advice and offer of support!!
Clare x
I'm so sorry. I completely misunderstood your first post! I thought that you were the daughter and were applying on a skilled visa, with the intention of her Parents following in due course. Yours is only the second post I've ever seen where the plan is to get both Parents and Grandparents out to Oz - though there is no reason why it shouldn't happen.
Hence when you mentioned September 2006, I thought, "What in the world has the Adelaide Skilled Processing Centre been up to????!!!"
Right. I'm clear now though!
If you are sure that you have applied for a Parent 103 visa, the drill is as follows:
The application goes in. Sooner or later they check it for basic validity (ie that the Balance of Family Test is met and so on) and debit the money. Then you will be asked to get the first lot of Meds & Pccs done. This should happen relatively soon, now.
Assuming that the Meds & Pccs are OK, you will be added to the official Queue for the Parent visa, and you will be given an official Queue Date. (I am told that it takes around 18 months from submitting the visa application to joining the Queue.) Once you know the Queue Date, you will be able to use it to check your progress on the Queue Calculator. For the details of that, please see the link below:
I can tell you that the Queue Calculator works with a "fake date" of 5th December 2006. I fiddled with it randomly one evening till I got it to work. Evidently at least one Parent, or a batch of Parents (not sure which) have 5 December 2006 as their official Queue Date.
I am afraid that it makes pretty grim reading though. As you will have seen from the link above, the Parent 103 visa is the offshore verson of the Parent visa. As things stand at present, only 700 places a year are available for Parent 103 applicants. The new Government is still so new that nobody knows whether they are likely to increase the quota of places available and even if they do so, nobody knows when it might happen. Thieir election manifesto was completely silent about Immi matters.
Back to the Queue Calculator. I have just checked it for you, using 5th Dec 2006 as the otional Que Date simply because that date works. Had you been added to the Queue on that date, there would be approximately 11,300 Parent applicants ahead of you in the Queue. Divide that by 700 (the number of places currently available each year) and the result is a further 16 years to wait, theoretically.
In practice it is unlikely to be quite as long as 16 years (assuming that the number of
places available each year remains constant.) Some Parents will switch to the CP visa. Others will grow old and die duuring the interminable wait. Others still will become ill and by the time the second lot of meds & Pccs have to to b done - they are required as part of the final pre-grant processing - the sick parent may not be able to meet the medical criteria for permanent migration.
All these factors mean that a further wait of 16 years is unlikely for the group added to the Queue on 5th Dec 2006 but a wait in excess of a further 12 years in the Queue is a racing certainy as things stand at present. However, please bear in mind that it will have taken this group around 18 months to get into the Queue to begin with and they have now been in the Queue for a year. So they are now 700 places further forward than they were this time last year.
What I do not understand is why you seem to have been unaware of the facts as I have described them above. Why did your Agent not make all this very clear to you at the outset and who is your Agent? (Please send me a Private Message or e-mail about this if you prefer. if yyou click on my user-name to the left of this post. a drop-down menu will appear which will give you the option of a PM or an e-mail.)
My guess wuld be that you and Hubby are both well under 63, in which case the onshore Aged Parent visa possibility would not be open to you. However, if there is any chance at all that you could scrape enough money together for a CP visa instead then I would DEFINITELY recomend doing so. If you are able to do this and decide to, you would not have to pay the 1st Instalment of $1,390 again.
Please shout if I can help further in any way at all.
Best wishes
Gill
PS, Clare: Since typing the above, I've seen a similarthread on another forum just now. Someone on the other forum has managed to get the Queue Calculator to work with a Queue Date of 1 November 2007, which is a much better benchmark for you.
Last edited by Gollywobbler; 11-12-2007 at 08:12 PM.
Reason: Addition
This is just to let everyone who may be interested know that the Queue Calclulator is not reliable for CP visa applicants. It appears to work, but it is actually only running on test data, put in so as to test whether or not it would work for the CP categories if it had to.
It has ever been given any live data to chew on because until 2007 there were enough CP places to go round every year. It is now over-subscribed for the for the first time. Tere was talk of maybe doing the processing in the same way as they do it for non-contributory Parents but nothing has come of it so far.
Hiya Gill
Oh NO I owe u a huge apology, we are on the 143 not 103...we are paying the lump sum of money to get visa through quicker...I am so, so, so sorry I wasted your time on that lovely long detailed email - I got my visa numbers round the wrong way...(i should have double checked my visa class b4 writing sorry...)
BUt you still answered one of my questions cos you said we should get med & pccs request soon...which must mean we are def on track...thank you...
I am so sorry again for getting in a twizzle with the visa numbers...
As far as which visa it is is concerned, no worries, because people frequently do ask about the non-contrbutory Parent visa, hoping to be able to save a large wad. The desire to save the money is wholly understandable but my personal viiew is that the potential risks - particularly with the second meds after an inordinately long wait - are too great to make the idea attractive.
However, there is NO WAY that one submits a CP 143 application in September 2006 and the POPC then take 15 months to acknowledge receipt and debit your card for the first instalment, which would have been $1,340 in Autumn 2006. Even if an application was made for a P103 visa and then in Jan 07 it was switched to a CP 143 visa, it still shouldn't have taken this long to acknowledge receipt of the application, confirm receipt and actioning of the altered Instructions and to make the debit of the 1st Istalment.
Something is defiinitely not right here and you need to find out what is going on. The POPC have told me on many occasions that they operate an "open door" policy. They are willing to speak with the appointed Agent, with the visa applicants and/or with the visa applicants' children. (Checking identity is not difficult because of she sheer detail that has to be provided in Form 47PA. If I weren't who I say I am, it is most unlikely that I would know not only my own full name and d.o.b but also that of both of my Parents, their wedding date, Mum's maiden name and the date of Dad's death, obviously. So they can easily check whether a caller is genuine.)
To find out exactly what is wrong, in your shoes I would by pass your Agent and speak with the POPC myself. I'd be inclined to ring them rather than e-mailing them, even though Perth is 9 hours ahead of the UK at the moment. By midnight in the UK tthere should be plenty of life in the POPC's office. The contact details are here:
It might be that wires have become crossed somewhere and that they are still treating it as a P103 application, in which case you need to jump up and down and get it sorted out, plainly. There is absolutely NO WAY that it should have taken this long to get the acknowledgement, that is for sure.
I firmly suggest that you find out what is going on - from the POPC, because they won't try to put any sort of "spin" on the facts - and then come back to us on PiO and let us know what they say.
Thank you for your advice to contact the POPC, I rang last nite and the news was NOT GOOD!
It appears our application was lodged on 28/11/07...!!! I explained to her about it being supposedly lodged in Sept 06 as a 103, and then when we realised it was in the wrong class, he changed it in Jan/Feb 07 - the POPC said there was no such record of our application until 28/11/07. So the big question is, what the hell happened to our application between Feb 07 - Nov 07?
She then explained that when applications are lodged they are acknowledged within about 1 week, when lodgement fee is taken from credit card and then letter of receipt is sent...so she asked why our agent hadn't wondered why there had been no response and chased it up - it at least should have gone through this in Feb 07. Then there is a 6-7 month waiting for a case officer and then approx 3 months later - visa is granted. So she said, we should have had our visa granted by now...but instead we won't get a case officer until Aug 08 - then should get visa granted about Nov 08...
Our agent gave me some crap story that it just took this long to even get looked at...as I questioned this on a couple of occassions...I even saw him last week as he was over from Oz in London and he said, jokingly "you'll probably find they will start the process just before christmas so you end up with the fee on your credit card along with all the other christmas expenses..." In hindsight, I am now wondering if he knew he'd screwed up and only lodged it then??? Can't understand what happened between Feb and Nov
To be told this has made us absolutley LIVID as you can imagine...for several reasons...the child we are wanting to be with is only 6 years old and also, I wantt o have children, but can't until we get there (high risk of twins and therefore ruining family balance)
POPC suggested we contact MARA and if our complaint is successful they may be able to push us through quicker...but we need proof that the agent has acted incorrectly. We have emails only since Jan 07 (all prior were on a diff email address which we lost) - but this will prove that we confirmed our 143 request and that he said that had been changed...so surely that will prove that in Feb 07 it should have actually been lodged and started the process...?? Do you have any experience of dealings with MARA??
I am soooo angry - words cannot express without turning the forum blue!! We are totally gutted but I really thank you for your advice because otherwise we would have been none the wiser.
Any words of wisdom now will be gratefully accepted...will it do us any good do you think to complain to MARA?
I have started a new thread for you because this is a very iserious issue which really needs a thread of its own so that people can find it easily.
It sounds to me like your Agent never got around to submitting your application originally, let alone changing it from a 103 to a 143 as instructed. I suspect that seeing you at the Expo jogged his memory.
Please PM me and let me know the same and address of the Agent, so that we can get you some help to work out which bits of local legislation might apply to protect the aggrieved clients over and above complaiing to the MARA.
The trouble with complaining to the MARA is that they can fine the Agent and they can even suspend his registration either temporarily or permanently., but the MARA's powers do not extend to ordering him to pay compensation to you.
The first thing to check is whether or not your Agent is actually registered with the MARA. You can search the register via typing in his family name. Please see here and let us know whether he is MARA-registered or not:
Please start making a dossier, with notes of the dates of when you have had conversations with the Agent, the content of the conversations to the best of your memoory, and copies of any e-mail or letter/fax exchanges between you, plus a copy of the contract between you. It is important that you send the MARA the most complete record that you can. They can then send their Inspectors in to see whether the Agent's file corresponds with your own.
For the moment, please just start getting your dossier ready. Sit tight on any other action at this stage and do nothing else besides checking the register and confirming whether or not this Agent holds current registration. If you can't find him in the main register, look in the sinner's list..
I am going to alert PiO's "resident agents" to ask for advice for you. I've never had to help anyone to deal with a complaint to the MARA before. Please give me time to PM the Agents to alert them, then I'll do some more research and get back to you.
Hang in there, honey. There is a way to sort this mess out, for sure.
We need to know - URGENTLY, please - which State this Agent is based in, I suspect, to find out what sort of legislation exists locally to protect a client in your situation.
In England & Wales you would have a cast-iron claim for damages under the Supply of Goods & Services Act, which states that anyone who holds himself out as an expert in a given field must act with the degree of skill and know-how, plus exercise the same standards of due care & attention, as a genuine expert in the field would. If he falls short of these standards, he is liable to the client in damages.
There must be equivalent legislation in Australia but I don't know whether it is Federal Law or State Law (which might vary from State to State.) I also need our agents to tell us how the contract of engagement would normally be set up between a MARA-registered Agent in Oz and a client in the UK.
I know it is easy for me to say "Don't Panic" but it honestly doesn't help in a situation like yours. Just try to stay calm and let us get you some competent help.
You have my e-mail addy and I will reply to your e-mail from the other day a bit later, giving you a phone number so that you can ring me if you just want to dump on somebody about what has happened.
Big hugz, honey
Gill
xxx
Last edited by Gollywobbler; 13-12-2007 at 07:46 PM.
Reason: Typos
CP 143 Application Gone Wrong - Please Help!!!!!
so maybe that's been our hold up!!??
