Les Avalook
-
Posts
564 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
2
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Gallery
Articles
Everything posted by Les Avalook
-
Quote from a longer post on page 226: Final thought, applying for the 143 visa, paying all of the payments, having at least one return trip out, selling and replacing house, car(s) furniture, clothes etc, etc ,etc, is now approaching a minimum outlay for a couple of £100,000. It is unlikely they will afford a house of the same standard that they have in the UK in Oz. It is not for the faint hearted anymore. £100,000 in a UK bank account would earn enough interest to pay for at least a couple of return flights a year but at some stage who would want the 24 hour flights later in their life? Also consider that older CPV's UK pension spending power has fallen 25% in the last 3 years in Oz as the rate of exchange dropped from $2 to £1 to the current $1.50. :swoon:
-
As MikenSue said 2-3 weeks is the norm, you will see the money taken first. :biggrin:
-
Had a good day Matt? :twitcy: When I look at Oz homes with up to 50" TV in most rooms do they buy them just for show? :biggrin: Hope it is going well for you and Lady matt. :wubclub: Our flying visit at the end of the month will be too short to share a beer this time but hope to catch up with you in the near future. :notworthy:
-
I wrote to the BBC suggesting that they allow one to pay the UK Fee and they give you a pin number to sign on to iplayer when you live abroad, I did not get a reply.:nah: If paying a 3rd party to do this works more fool the BBC.
-
The problem with these shows is you never know how the people are told or encouraged to act in front of the camera and with careful editing they could come across completely different to their norm. The main bit that gave that 'hoon' impression was the beach driving with horn blaring on what could have been Fraser Island (just guessing) but they did not really give clues as to where many scenes were shot. I don't think the remit of the program is to give info on how to emigrate just how people who have are getting on after a year or so. :idea: If you want to cook eggs for breakfast on the beach go to the UK £1 Shop and stock up on their non-stick oven liner sheets (they are washable and last well), eggs cook fine and don't stick to BBQ. P.S. My avatar may have been taken on the same beach.
-
The validation year starts from either the first date of Police Checks or Meds so it is best to post off your Police Check application form in the week that you have booked your meds so that the dates are as close as possible. Hard to advise on good place for meds as you have not indicated where you live or which country you reside in. :wink:
-
Try http://www.insure-your-move.com/Site+Information/Contact+Us or http://www.lettonpercival.co.uk/emigration-insurance/ for realistic quotes and better cover than the removal companies.
-
Les’s Stress Reducing Guide to CPV143. Appling should carry a Government Wealth Warning. OK you have decided to go and join your loved ones permanently in OZ. First you have to choose if you will fund the application from savings or from the sale of your home. :idea:If you are going to fund from savings seriously consider buying up to 50% of the visa cost as your application proceeds, as you cannot predict the exchange rate. Building up a fund by buying Aus $s each month will get the average exchange rate for some of your £s and will not leave you with a large bill to pay just when the £ hits a dip. I know the exchange rate could also improve but over the last 3 years I have read countless posts of people waiting just one more month for the improvement that never came. You can get £s into Aus $s via your bank or via Forex exchange companies, you may be more comfortable using a bank but you will pay more for the exchange rate, if you use a Forex company stick to the main ones mentioned on PomsInOz and your money will be just as safe as using a bank. :idea:Do some small transfers so you understand how it works and how long it takes. You need either your own validated Oz bank account (validated so you can get the money out) or use your son or daughters bank account to receive the $s. To me the advantage of the Forex companies is you know what rate you are buying at when you order the money, the banks like to be very vague on what rate you will get. Next, the biggy. If your home is going to fund your visa payment the only safe way to do this is to sell the house and then rent until the big day, lots of parents have done this and have said how much it reduced the stress of the whole move. As you cannot be certain when the house will sell or when the CO will ask for the money it will reduce the stress on the financial side by getting the house sold, it will force you to de-clutter for the move into rental accommodation and it will help with the emotional side as you start to cut your ties with your life in the UK. :idea:If this is the route you need to take I would suggest the first thing you do after posting off the application is get the house ready to go on the market. Sell or give away all your spare household items, everything you take to Oz in the container is going to cost a lot of shipping money and insurance to send so now is the time to sort it out. Now you have sorted out the funding for the move you have to wait for the CO’s email. :idea:While you wait get some removal firms round to give you a quote for the final move out, aim for 3 to 4 quotes. When the email comes remember the request times for Meds etc, are a guide, you will not lose the visa if you miss a deadline. 28 days are becoming the norm but as recently as Christmas 2010 we were given 49 days. :idea:Book your meds first and then post off your Police check application form in the week that you go for your Meds so that the dates are as close as possible. Whichever is dated first will be the date used for your 1 year to validate the visa. Next your Assurance of Support (AoS) has to be arranged and funded for the bond, hopefully you would have by now got enough Aus $s to pay this when requested. Centrelink works off their own time frame so if you get a hold up, email your CO and let them know if you think you may get a delay (we did due to the Brisbane floods as AoS interviews were stopped for a while). With all the above taking its course you will have the Meds and results sent out, the Police checks you need to courier or post out, the payment of the bond by your AoS and then another wait. If it has gone OK the next thing you get is an email from your CO asking for the 2nd Vac payment, so you now need to find the best way for you to make that final payment. The most expensive way is by credit card payment in Perth. If the rate is OK buy the remaining $s to top up the $s you have been buying over the last year (I hope you have) and get an Oz bank cheque sent to Perth. If the rate has fallen badly it is sometimes cheaper to pay in London in £s, but this does not happen too often. Once payment has been made they will request your passport is sent to London to get the visa put in, we chose to renew our current passport early (you can have up to 1 year added to a new passport if your old one has not run out) so we have the maximum 11 year UK passport with visa stamp in it. Hope my thoughts may be of help to some and they are based on a couple enjoying average health. Final thought, applying for the 143 visa, paying all of the payments, having at least one return trip out, selling and replacing house, car(s) furniture, clothes etc, etc ,etc, is now approaching a minimum outlay for a couple of £100,000. It is unlikely they will afford a house of the same standard that they have in the UK in Oz. It is not for the faint hearted anymore. £100,000 in a UK bank account would earn enough interest to pay for at least a couple of return flights a year but at some stage who would want the 24 hour flights later in their life? The biggest killer at the moment is that £100,000 will now only buy $150,000 and not the $200,000 when we started this project. Having said all of the above you have the chance to start a brand new adventure in a fantastic country with English as their main language, drive on the correct side of the road and rarely get a frost(in QLD). Who says old farts can’t die happy? :notworthy: P.S. If anyone wants to reply to this maybe just quote the title or Fiz's next post as this is tooooo long to be repeated. ;-)
-
You would have to go some to raise £50,000 that way. P.S. What are you talking about?
-
:idea: Re-mortgage.
-
We are flying out to Brisbane to validate our visa in the school half term week at the end of this month. We felt we would rather take this option now and have plenty of time to sell our house without the pressure to consider a low offer if we start to run out of time in the 12 months that you have to enter Oz. May/June has the cheapest flights and from this time onwards a one way flight will cost as much as we have paid for a return. We have no time that we need to be in Oz by to live, we will stay with our son until we find a place to rent but we expect our house buying money will remain in the UK until the rate of exchange picks up. We have another son who is staying in the UK :cry: so as a last resort we could ask him to sell the house if things take too long.
-
I guess you have earnt your name. :yes: We had a 'Dear John' letter from our E.A. (after a month of no contact) saying that the hot weather has stopped people viewing. I didn't send my reply. :twitcy:
-
Sorry to tell you Cakey, I sent them round, it's a windup. :biglaugh:
-
Google Police Certificates for the form and then send off the money. Simple.
-
For Poms looking to buy $s there is a current small move off the recent low rate. Every little helps. Just my 2 cents worth. :wubclub:
-
Helen jctc is talking about UK Removal companies (not the Masons) John Masons and PSS (Personnal Shipping Services), these 2 have given us the 2 cheapest quotes to move a 20ft (standard size) container to Brisbane. For us their quote was £4,000 plus insurance, Crown and Pickfords want £5,000 for the same quote. We are at the limbo stage waiting for our house to sell. :SLEEP:
-
This one looks reasonable for a one way trip. http://quote.insureandgo.com/Single/compare.aspx
-
Short answer Yes! If you want to go down the Forex route have a look at http://www.pomsinoz.com/forum/money-finance/ lots of threads on there and lots of helpful info. We opened accounts with Moneycorp, HiFix and UKForex (also know as OzForex). We have only used UKForex because their quotes have always been just that little bit better plus I like using the internet against having to phone for a quote. You will need to get your daughters bank account details so the money can be sent direct to their account. We have found it takes 3 days to get from our Nationwide account to UKForex and then about 24 hours for them to send the $s to our son's account. We had sent most of the money out to him over the last year so we only had to send a smallish amount to complete the deal at a time when the rate was low. We are now using any spikes in the rate to send out our first years rental money. PM me if you need any help.
-
Different visa Mike, Cakey is after the Full Monty 143 hence the bond payment. :wubclub:
-
Classic case of banks charging more than UKForex etc, you pays your money and makes your choice. Their rate appears to be $1.486 which I have not seen below $1.50 yet on any Forex site. Then again some people do not trust the Forex type sites so have to pay the bank's premium. Have you allowed for the $150 change to set up the account with Commonwealth? If you mean the cost of the 2nd vac payment I think it is $34,330 per person if yours is in the same year as ours. On Oz/UKForex site as I type that would cost you £22,709 @ $1.5117 to the £. No idea what Santander would charge. :jimlad:
-
We are paying £20.65 for Wanda and I to go on our 1 week validation trip at the end of this month. We used http://www.moneysupermarket.com/travel-insurance/ to find the cheapest. :idea: Why not buy a weeks cover and forget to come back? One way insurance looks a lot dearer. :mad: Our quote came from Debenhams Insurance and was cheaper via the above web site than going to Deb's direct. Either way have a good trip. :wubclub:
-
......and this was only 6 weeks ago..... you just need to look for every spike. :wubclub:
-
Best of luck Matt, sounds like you are creating a one man job shortage in Ipswich. :biglaugh:
-
In 3 years of watching the 'official' 6 month fix they have always set it at rate up to 5 cents less than the floating rate just prior to the first of Jan or July. The Jan 2011 fix was the smallest drop from the floating rate but they still keep the trend downward, and what government wouldn't? In the UK the chance of our bank rate going up keeps moving further away so there appears to be no early change of direction for sterling against the Aus $, if anyone can't afford it now I would not bank on an early improvement. :no:
-
Agreed, when we validate in the half term week we have 4 days flying out of 9 and then back to work so to be able to sleep would be a big plus, but it never seems to work for us either. :wacko: P.S. Our son and d-i-l are back home for 3 weeks :jiggy:, they used Air Asia from Gold Coast to Stansted. Our son found the seats a tight squeeze and could not pre-order or hire in flight entertainment so found the flight very boring, they did not think the saving for them was worth the loss of comfort and service over normal airlines.