Non contributary Parent Visa

[Dolly]

Hi

 

We applied for our Non con Parent Visa last July, through an agent. We've had no news since hearing that it had been received. On looking through the posts I don't seem to see any Non con parent visa mentions. Is the wait for the CO for this a lot longer than for the CV?

[Guest smileygrandma's son in Oz]

Hi

 

We applied for our Non con Parent Visa last July, through an agent. We've had no news since hearing that it had been received. On looking through the posts I don't seem to see any Non con parent visa mentions. Is the wait for the CO for this a lot longer than for the CV?

 

Hi There, My mum was going to go non con, we rang immigration and they said the waiting period for this visa is 10 years, I have since heard its gone upto 16 years, so my mum has done the contributary one she applied june last year and is due to receive her visa in July. Im sure gollywobbler will get in touch soon All the best.

[Guest Gollywobbler]

Hello Dolly

You are right. There is almost nothing about non-contributory Parent and Aged Parent visas on any of the forums that I know of except on Poms in Oz and the material on Poms in Oz is only here because I wrote much of it myself!

Where are you, Dolly? Have you applied for the offshore Parent subclass 103 visa or for the onshore subclass 804 Aged Parent visa?

If you have applied for the offshore Parent subclass 103 visa, the official description of it is here:

http://www.immi.gov.au/migrants/family/103/index.htm

There are processed by the POPC (Perth Offshore Parents Centre.) Currently 700 visas are available each year but this number will double with effect from 1st July 2008. After the application is lodged, nothing happens for about 12-15 months. The POPC then contact the applicant or his/her Agent, requesting the first set of medicals and police checks.

If you want to know how long it it is likely to be before you hear anything more, I would suggest that you phone the POPC and ask them. It won’t take more than 5 minutes to discover what you need to know and the staff at the POPC are particularly helpful and sympathetic towards Parents and their children. You would need to know the reference number for your application (which is on the acknowledgement letter.) The staff do not mind speaking with the family regardless of whether or not an Agent is involved. The contact details are here:

http://www.immi.gov.au/contacts/australia/processing-centres/perth-offshore-parents.htm

Some Agents are prone to mumble a load of absolute hocus pocus in an effort to prevent their clients from making direct contact with DIAC. It is complete nonsense and you can safely ignore it if you have heard any of the drivel that some Agents trot out. DIAC do not send people to the back of the queue simply because they ring up with a quick question! They would be in breach of their Client Service Charter if they did any such thing and it would cause riots, I have absolutely no doubt. In any case, the POPC would not publish their phone number on the world wide web if they are not prepared to receive phone calls.

Once the meds and police checks have been processed and cleared, the Parents are added to the official Queue and will be given a Queue Date plus instructions about how to workt the Parent visa Queue Calculator, which is here:

http://www.immi.gov.au/migrants/family/parent-visa-processing-priorities.htm

The Queue Calculator is supposed to be updated once a month. In practice it has not bene updated for some time because by the end of November 2007 DIAC had granted all 700 visas that are/were available for the 2007/8 Migration Program Year. They will need to re-program the Queue Calculator on 1st July 2008 anyway so as to make it work with the new quota of 1,400 visas.

Evidently you do not have a Queue Date as yet but no worries because the calculator works if you tell it 27th November 2007, which is recent enough to be useful. Ignore the stuff about a secure website and just try it, I suggest.

I’ve just tried it and it says that there are approximately 12,680 applicants in the Queue who are ahread of the person who jined the Queue on 27th November 2007. Divide that by 700 visas a year and you get a wait of approximately 18 years after being added to the Queue.

In practice the wait would not be as long as 18 years. I reckon that approximately 15 years is about right at the moment but this will halve on 1st July 2008, remember. The actual wait is bound to be shorter than the calculator predicts because some of the applicants will switch into the queue for Contributory Parent visas, some of the Parent visa applicants will die during the lengthy wait and others still will fail the second set of meds which must be produced once the final processing of the application begins some years hence.

This visa actually suits some British Parents very well because it might be that they are only in their 50s now, not planning to retire for a good few years yet and their work commitments mean that they cannot spend a lot of time in Australia at the moment anyway. If they can afford to spend long holidays in Australia, a special concession in the rules for the subclass 676 tourist visa states that anyone with a Queued application for a Parent visa should be permitted to spend up to 12 months at a time in in Australia on the 676 visa if s/he so requests.

http://www.immi.gov.au/visitors/tourist/676/index.htm

The beauty of this visa is that once it is eventually granted, the Parents are only subject to a two year Assurance of Support period, and after that the Parents, the Sponsor and the Assurer are all off the hook in terms of any liability for anything and the Parents can claim every social security benefit in sight should they need to, apart from the Australian Age Pension. That cannot be claimed for 10 years after the Parent visa has been granted. Disability Support Pension also cannot be claimed for 10 years unless the Parent visa holder becomes disabled after the Parent visa has been granted and validated. Full Medicare cover is available immediately, however, as are full and unresrticted work rights in Australia.

Whether or not it is the best of the range of Parent visas depends entirely on the circumstances of the individual applicants in my view. Cost is obviously an important factor because the Contributory Parent visa is much more expensive, particularly for a couple, plus the Assurance of Support is potentially much more onerous for the Assurer(s) (Usually one or more of the children) of Contributory Parents.

The main risk with the offshore Parent 103 visa is that one of the Parents might become ill during the lengthy wait, causing him or her to fail the second set of meds at the end of the visa process. If that happens, the visa application must be refused for both Parents.

Therefore if a couple cannot afford a Contributory Parent visa apiece, the first question I would ask them is whether they could afford one Contributory Parent visa instead? If they can, then they might become able to use the split visa strategy which is described in the thread below:

http://www.pomsinoz.com/forum/migration-issues/33895-contributory-parents-split-visa-strategy.html

Have I answered your questions adequately, honey? If in fact you are in Australia and you have applied for the Aged Parent subclass 894 visa instead then please come back to me and I will explain what I know about that visa as well.

Best wishes

Gill

[Dolly]

Thanks Gill

That was very informative. I'll follow up your suggestions, and take a look at the split visa strategy. We've applied for the offshore. We live in London. I'm 60 and my husband is 63, so time is not on our side. Both our sons live in Oz, and our two grand children, so we want to be there ASAP

Thanks for the reply

Dolly

[Dolly]

Thanks for the reply smileygrandma's son.

I think we'll have to change to contributary. Good luck to your mum. We miss our family so much.... I know how she must feel. Lucky her to be with you soon,

 

Dolly