desperate parents need help

[annalong]

Hya
Our daughter and family are moving to OZ this year. I have heard that the CPV list has been suspended, any info on that? Also info on other ways round this problem that would help us to move to OZ.
Thank you
Ann & Roy.

[cazbeckham]

No more info on CPV yet. We were about to pay our 2nd payment last week and be granted our visa only to be told they have been halted till further notice - how bad is that, We may have to wait till July when the new quota starts again.

Caz

[Gollywobbler]

Hi Ann & Roy

Welcome to Poms in Oz.

The Contributory Parent Visa scheme has NOT been suspended. They are continuing to accept applications for them and there are no plans to scrap the scheme or to do anything significant to the original and existing plans for it beyond (we hope) increasing the annual quota from the current 3,500 CP visas available each year.

All that has actually happened is that demand for CPVs now exceeds supply quite substantially. It was slways foreseen that this would happen sooner or later. The 2006/7 DIAC Report explains this in more detail. Please click on the link below and scroll down to the section headed Parents:

1.1.2 Family entry (permanent) - Output 1.1- Annual Report 2006-07

By the end of November 2007, DIAC had granted or allocated all 3,500 visas available between 01/07/2007 and 30/06/2008.

During the first week in December, DIAC instructed its staff not to make requests for any more Assurancesof Support, nor to request any more 2nd Instalments for CPVs. Applications are continuing to be processed up until the time when the Meds and police checks have been processed and cleared.

After this, the applications are being held in a Queue according to the date on which the CPV application was lodged.

The worst case scenario is that the new Minister for Immi will decline to increase the annual quota of CP visas. In that event, a further 3,500 new CP visas will nevertheless be available from 1 July 2008.

It is hoped that the Minister will inctease the quota and that he will do so within the current Prpgram Year, so as to make extra new visas available before 30 June 2008. If he does that, then Caz (who has replied to you) and her husbad will be among the first to be asked to pay the 2nd Instalment so that their CPVs can be granted because they weer caught "on the cusp" as it were. They had already been asked to arrange the Assurance of Support before DIAC decided to stop asking applicants to do this bit.

However, Caz & Baz will be in the front line for their CPVs on or soon after 1 July 2008 even if nothing happens about the annual quota.

That disposes of the confusion about what is actually happening about CP visas, I hope, ad there will be more information both on this forum and on British Expats just as soon as there is any.

From your own point of view, you have not said enough about your own situation for me to be able to offer you anything more than very general tips.

1. First, are you sure that you will become eligible for Parent migration once your daughter has moved to Australia?

2. If "yes", then when are you likely to become eligible to apply? Do you have to wait until your daughter s sufficiently "settled" in Australia to be able to sponsor a CPV application for you, or do you have another child in Oz who could sponsor you as soon as your daughter has become lawfully & permanently resident in Oz?

If you are in any doubt, please consult Booklet 3, which is here:

Parent Migration Booklet

If there will be a hiatus before you can apply for Parent migration, or if you are not eligible for it, then the next step would be to consider whether you could afford a subclass 405 Investor Retirement visa. Please see here:

Investor Retirement (Subclass 405)

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

If you can't afford am Invetor Retirement visa - which many, many British Parents (including my mother) would not be able to afford, are you able to spare enough time to make extended visits to Australia? If so, please see here:

Tourist Visa (Subclass 676)

DIAC are generally very good about allowing British Parents to visit Australia for six or even 12 months, you would find, but they will not permit you to "back to back" these as a means of "moving to Australia" as opposed to "just visiting." Visitors are expected to go home for a while in between visits is what it boils down to.

But there is certainly no reason why family continuity should be lost to any significant extet and nowadays Skype, webcams etc all help immensely as well.

I hope this will be of some help.

Best wishes

Gill

[The Littles]

Gill
Hello and can I just say a huge thankyou for the time and effort that you put into answering questions relating to migration issues, for so many people on this website. I am the said daughter, (Gaynor) to which Annalong (Ann - my mum) refers! My family and I are hoping to move to Oz this year - to explain, my husband has dual citizenship and I am, by coincidence, today!!!!... submitting my 47SP application for a temp spouse visa. Mum and step father Roy (no children) are hoping to follow us, money and visa permitting.

It is a very nerve wrecking time for them, as they consider uprooting from their retirement home in Ireland to sunny Oz. I am the only child of Ann as my brother has sadly passed away some years ago, so it is incredibly important that we can be reunited in Australia.

What would you recommend to be the best option for them - Ann and Roy are understandably worried about arriving in Oz with no guarantee of being allowed to stay.

thanks once again! Mum only checks her emails once a week, so there may be a delay in her response!

Gaynor x

[tahe49]

Originally Posted by The Littles

Mum and step father Roy (no children) are hoping to follow us, money and visa permitting.

It is a very nerve wrecking time for them, as they consider uprooting from their retirement home in Ireland to sunny Oz. I am the only child of Ann as my brother has sadly passed away some years ago, so it is incredibly important that we can be reunited in Australia

Gaynor x

Hi Gaynor

We are also hoping to go this year (and my sister also) and my mum is also uprooting and using all her savings to come with us. Pretty scary stuff - i just hope it is the right thing for all of us!

Tahe

[The Littles]

Hi Tahe
Good Luck to you and your family - I am sure it will work out just fine - Any tips with regards to the visa process? It all seems rather expensive to me!
Gaynor

[Gollywobbler]

Hi Gaynor

Hopefully your temporary Spouse visa will be granted very quickly. Your Permanent Spouse Visa must be granted before your Parents' application for a CP visa can be made. However, this does mean that your Parents' CP application should be able to be submitted sometime around March 2010.

Sometime between now and July 2008 we should hear what the Minister for Immi intends to do about (hopefully) increasing the quota of CP visas. Once we know what the quota will be from July 2008 onwards, it should be possible to come up with a reasonably accurate prediction of how long your Parents' CP application is likely to take to process once it has been submitted.

Apart from this, though, I don't think there is anything I can usefully add to my reply to Ann at this stage. I think that your family needs to cosider the options I outlined to Ann and then please shout if I can help any furher at this stage.

Cheers

Gill

[tahe49]

Originally Posted by The Littles

Hi Tahe
Good Luck to you and your family - I am sure it will work out just fine - Any tips with regards to the visa process? It all seems rather expensive to me!
Gaynor

Im afraid it is expensive, there is no way round that BUT looking on the positive side they only seem to let the best people into the country

[annalong]

Hi, Thank you so much for replying, I am glad that Gaynor sent a thank you also. My problem is that I am not on broadband here in rural Ireland, and sometimes I cant even get a connection. We definately could not afford the retirement visa. I guess we will have to wait till 2010 before we can apply for the cpv, unless Gaynors husband who is an australian citizen could be our sponser? If we came over on the visitors visa for 12 months how long would we have to stay out of the country before applying for another one, and would we have to apply while out of oz or could we apply before said visa runs out.
I'm sorry to be asking lots of questions but I do find the forms very complicated. Can you apply for a CPV while in OZ on a visitors visa?
Many thanks once again for your earlier reply its great to get good information that I can understand.

Ann and Roy.

[Gollywobbler]

Hi Ann

Try not to worry at this stage. It is all terribly confusing to start with but it will all fall into place for you, you'll see.

You cannot apply for a CP visa until Gaynor has Permanent Residence in Oz. She will get PR sometime in 2010, approximately two years after the grant of her temporary Spouse visa. Your son in law can sponsor the application but Gaynor has to have PR in order for the application to be valid.

If you use a couple of s/c 676 long-stay tourist visas to enable you to visit Oz before you are able to apply for a CPV, the chances are high that you will need to be outside Australia at the time when you submit your CPV application. The reason is because DIAC in London would almost certainly impose Condition 8503 on your tourist visas, the effect of which would be to prevent you from being able to make the CPV application for as long as you are onshore in Australia.

Once the CPV application is submitted, DIAC would almost certainly permit you a 12 month stay in Australia on a s/c 676 visa. If that expires before your CV visa is ready to be granted, you would be able to nip to Auckland for a week in order to obtain new s/c 676 visas permitting a further 12 month stay in Australia. Once the CP visas are ready to be granted you would need to visit Auckland again because you must be outside Australia when the CP visas are granted.

This leaves the question of how to plan things before you are able to make the CPV applications. In the first year after Gaynor migrates, the chances are good that DIAC in London would be willing to grant you a 12 month stay in Australia. They tend to be generous towards British Parents making their first visit to Oz. Personally I would be inclined to make a paper application using Form 48, and send a covering letter with it giving details of Gaynor’s visa and explaining your own long-term plans.

The 676 visa will permit you to travel to Oz at any time within a year of the date on which the visa is granted. If it permits a 12 month stay, the 12 months starts to run from the date of your arrival in Australia, irrespective of when the visa was granted. Processing of a paper application takes 1-2 weeks and you would send the application to the Australian High Commission in London. Please see here:

http://www.uk.embassy.gov.au/lhlh/Visas%5fand%5fMigration.html

If either of you is 70 or over, you would need your own GP to complete a simple form of medical certificate, which is here:

http://www.uk.embassy.gov.au/lhlh/health.html

If you need it, the medical certificate should be obtained in advance and should be submitted with the application.

With regard to obtaining a second s/c 676 visa prior to being aable to apply for your CP visas, you would need to play it by ear. You would really need to talk with DIAC to explain when you would expect to be able to apply for CP visas and ask them how they would feel about allowing you to obtain new s/c 676 visas during a short visit to Auckland rather than coming all the way back to Ireland. If they are OK about this, then great. If not, you would need to show willing by returning to Ireland and leaving it for say, 3 months or so, before making a new s/c 676 application.

As long as DIAC understand why you want to do something, they tend to be very helpful and accommodating, we found with my mother. I am convinced that talking to them and explaining everything helped to oil the wheels for my own mother.

I don’t want to overload you with info at this stage.

Please come back to me with ay further queries you might have.

Best wishes

Gill