parent visa 143 ?

[chrisf]

we applied for a 143 parent visa on 2nd october 2007, Is there any way we can go and live in australia while we are waiting for our visa to be processed.

[Gollywobbler]

Hi Chris

If you could afford to commit the money (lots) for 4 years and would ahve enough money left over to pay for the CP visa on top once it comes through, then a subclass 405 Investor Retirement visa would enable you to "live" in Australia whilst your CP 143 visa is processed.

Details of the Investor Retirement visa are here:

Investor Retirement (Subclass 405)

http://www.immi.gov.au/allforms/pdf/1248i.pdf

I'd have thought that the Investor Retirement route is overkill, though, once a CP application has been lodged.

If you are content just to "visit" Australia, as opposed to trying to move there to "live" there, I'd have said that a better option would be a subclass 676 long-stay tourist visa instead.

Please see here:

Tourist Visa (Subclass 676)

DIAC in London are usually pretty good about allowing British Parents to stay in Oz for 12 months, particularly if the Parents have applied for a CPV.

If you want 12 months, then your best bet is to make a paper application using Form 48. This will ensure that the tourist visa application is handled by a human in London. Send a copy of the acknowledgement letter for your CP application, plus a covering letter explaining that with the current delays in CP processing, by spending time in Australia you can at least tour suburbs etc and get an idea of where you would like to settle etc.

Please see here:

Tourist Visa (Subclass 676)

If either of you are 70 or over then your own GP must complete a simple form of Medical Certificate, which should be submitted with Form 48. Please see here:

Visas and migration - Australian High Commission

Click on the Health link. I have given you a wider link than you need because the AHC website contains lots of other useful info besides.

If oe of you is 70 or over, you do NOT need provate medical insurance, regardless of what it says on the main DIAC website. That is aimed at people from all over the world and few countries have Reciprocal Health Care Agreements with Australia. However, the UK does, and it counts as medical insurace for the purpose of a subclass 676 tourist visa.

Be aware that a 12 month stay on a subclass 676 tourist visa will inevitably attract Condition 8503 - no further stay. The effect of this is that you will have to leave Australia when it expires. Depending on what happens with processing times for CP visas, DIAC might be happy for you just to nip to Auckland, Bali, Singapore or similar for a week so that they can give you a new subclass 676 visa permitting another 12 months in Oz.

However my strong advice is do not sell up in the UK. Let your house in the UK to tenants instead, but hang on to it for now, I strongly suggest.

My reason for saying this is that if the Minister declines to increase the quota of CP visas, then the processing times for them are likely to stretch to 2-3 years. Tht is too long for comfoirt, in case oe of you develops a major health problem before DIAC is able to grant your CP visa. I would keep your security in the UK until the CP visa has actually been granted.

Best wishes

Gill

[adele244]

Hi Gill,

I always read your replies with great interest as you speak mostly about the things relevant to me at the moment. And the main thing that is literally keeping me awake at night and the first thing I think about in the morning is my parents.

Im now feeling better at the thought of them coming over on a 12month tourist visa and then returning until we get parents visa. I just feel so guilty they are noth 56 probably wanting some peace to their lives and us doing this means we are going to turn their lives upside down they will have to rent their house to strangers, go back to England and try to get another job (at 56 Im nit sure how easy this is for them) the return back on another visa. Then apply for a contributory visa, which will be most of their life savings. they still have a mortgage and would probably come to us with nothing, (however we would happy to support them)

Any way there is just a couple of questions I would like ask you if I may:-

If after being in Oz on a 12 month visa they have to return to uk, how long do they have to stay in england for before they can apply for another visa? Also it seems that skilled owrker visas are taking approx 1 year, how long does it normally take for a tourist visa to come through. You have previously mentioned popping over to a nearby country then reapplying. What does this mean, and how long would this have to be for?

Also as they still have a mortgage to pay, so say the visa is granted and they havent yet managed to find tenants for the house, would they loose the time given on the visa or could they ask for the date to start when they rent out the house?

I understand the contributory visa is a bit up in the air at the moment, what usually is the waiting list time for this visa in comparision with a normal parent visa?

Would the australian government allow my parents to come over for 12 months home for a few months back for 12 months etc for the next xxx years until we could get my parents a visa.

Im so so sorry for all the questions, but I need to be sure in my own mind that If we did get over to OZ there would be strong possibility that they could be over with us within the next few years. I would hate to get over there and say "oh sorry mum & dad its not like we thought you cant come now!!"

Really do appreciate the help you have given in these topics.

Adele

[Gollywobbler]

Hi Adele

DIAC in London are pretty good about long-stay tourist visas for British Parents as long as the Parents do not try to use them as a means of "living" in Australia as opposed to "just visitng."

If one applies for an e-676 visa, I should think the processing is practically instantanteous though I've never been involved with an application foran e-676 visa so I have no hands-on experience with it. I read a post on BE a few months ago in which a Parent said that he and his wife spend 6 months of each year in Australia and that they just get a new e-676 visa before each visit.

If one makes a paper application using Form 48, the visa will take 1-2 weeks to process depending on the time of year. They take longer as Christmas approaches because of the number of people planning to travel to Oz in time for Christmas with their families.

There are no hard & fast rules about how long one has to wait between visits to Oz. It is very much something which has to be played by ear, I reckon.

I would NOT advise trying to spend a year in Australia and then nipping to Auckland or Bali in order to apply for another 12 month stay in Oz unless and until a Parent or Contributory Parent application is rumbling its way through the system. Without the Parent application in the pipeline, I think DIAC might be suspicious about whether the Parent is really trying to use a series of tourist visas in order to "live" in Australia and they really don't like that idea. There are concessions about this once a Parent or CP application is in the official queue for Parent-migration.

It is nigh-on impossible to predict how long future CP applications are likely to take from application to grant. I think it very much depends on what the Minister does about the quota (if anything) and also on how the supply-to-demand ratio develops over the next 3 or 4 years.

Non-contributory Parent visas currently take about 15 years from start to finish. Parents have to have Meds in order to get into the Queue and then they have to have further Meds before the visa can eventually be granted. With such a long wait in between, the risk is that something might go wrong with the Parets' health before the second set of meds can be done.

Letting a house is quite complicated, and it is very dependent on the local market. My mother's house is in Hampshire. Round here, tenants tend to say that they want the house for a minimum of 12 months and they say that they want it to be unfurnished because they have their own furniture and they don't want to pay storage charges for it. We were able to make a long term commitment to letting Mum's house because it is only about 20 miles from where I live and I have enough space for Mum to stay with me whenever she comes to the UK. We got rid of most of her furniture and the precious stuff has now been distributed between my sister, myself and our half-sister.

I've heard that nowadays, if the property is to be let with furniture in it then the furniture must be made of modern, fire-retardant materials. This is just something someone told me. I've never asked a lettings agent what the score really is about this.

The other thing to bear in mind is that if the property is mortgaged, the mortgagees are likely to want to increase the interest rate on the loan quite significantly and they can be quite greedy about this. It is a breach of the terms of the mortgage to let the house without telling them in advance.

It is essential to use a good lettings agent - the best and most experienced one in the place. Don't go for the Agent quoting the cheapest fee. You want the one who does not have a history of tenants found by him defaulting on paying the rent.

Despite these caveats, though, I think it is better to let a house than to leave it empty. The buildings insurers prefer a house to be occupied so that somebody will know if the plumbing packs up or whatever. Also keeping a house heated reduces the likelihood of damp ad obviously if the house is occupied it is far less likely to attract vandals and squatters.

I would recommend that your parents should talk to the lettings agents in their area and find out what the local market demands because it does vary quite a lot between different parts of the country.

I'll send you a PM with a bit more info about all this. For now, I've probably bored everyone else enough!

Cheers

Gill