ramot

You don’t have to be in UK to sell a property, it’s completely doable from Australia. Be warned The time frame for completion on a house sale is ridiculously long in England, we are into the 6th month from date of sale agreed, to going complete this week. It’s a 1 bed flat, no mortgage, no chain, the solicitors are a slow motion joke, it’s an absolute nonsense.

Chris Evans was a labor immigration minister, so both governments guilty of canceling visas

How I remember the pain, and even some suicides, that man caused to prospective International students by changing the rules retrospectively overnight even though they had followed all the conditions to apply for PR, Our son was hit twice, by changes, luckily he was one of the very few, who after 31/2 years of the insecurity of being on a bridging visa, got PR, the majority were told to go. Should have only taken him 1 month.as his application was either in or going in the next day, can’t remember, but it was a disgrace.

,the safety net is combined amount of your prescriptions with your spouse, so if you both have what I call fairly ‘normal’ age health conditions, it’s very likely you will get your prescriptions at the $6.80 per script for part of the year.

Marisa we don’t qualify for a seniors health card apparently, so it’s not automatic. We pay the PBS rate until we meet the safety net, they then cost $6.80 until the end of the year. Would like be great if we were eligible for the seniors health card.

Best you start your own thread, as this has nothing to do with the thread title, and you have also commented about the above on another thread.’still here and still feel the pull’ it’s not recommended on PIO to ask the same question on multiple posts.

Hula hoops, absolutely no idea why, I just do. I’m off to Uk in October, will be interesting if I actually do still like and miss them

I can assure you it’s the 1980’s!!! It has taken us so far over 5 months to sell a property in Uk , no mortgage, no chain, just incompetent solicitors who if and when they deign to eventually reply to us, they have drip fed documents to us and insist on posted ink signed documents, won’t accept scanned copy’s. They have been drip feeding the documents to us for months. They have been taking 3 weeks to arrive back in UK, yes we could send registered, but that has taken over 2 weeks at extra cost least so not worth it. It’s pathetic

When we applied for the 864 visa in February 2017, the apparent time to visa being issued was 1 year according to the government website . Had our circumstances not changed, we would still be in for a long wait for the visa.

I did say different circumstances, just making the point that the NHS was checking up on someone who might have left the country, how did they even know about my movements. We have never told the NHS anything.

Many years ago when I was mostly living in Brunei, I received a letter from the NHS, saying it had come to their attention that on about a certain date I had left the country. Not quite the same circumstances I realise, but I was definitely checked up on how much time I was spending out of the country, and where I was living. Apparently then if I was out of the country for over 3 months in a year, I was no longer entitled to the NHS. I of course said I was never out of the country that long, but it proved they were aware of some change in my circumstances. ps we still had a house in our village, which is where the letter was sent.

My husband reckons approx $1,000 annually here on the Sunshine Coast, plus anything, eg the chorinator needing replaced. Yes water needs topping up from evaporation, costs in drought, but we haven’t been too badly impacted in the 19 years we have lived here. We did previously have solar heating, it it didn’t really extend how long we used the pool where we are. We have had such fun around the pool, wouldn’t be without it. ps. It does rain here in summer, fills the pool naturally. Certainly almost had an infinity pool recently

Can always use your points on shore. Having travelled as staff on standby tickets for more years than I care to remember, I was grateful to get a cheap seat, irrespective of its position, usually the last row where seats didn’t recline, quite useful though being near the galley, often good for an extra cup of tea or snack if you ask. still any seat better than not travelling.

Let’s be honest, if you are happy where you live, you probably just get on with life. If you are unhappy with life, you probably constantly compare countries and pick on the negative of the country where you are unhappy. Sometimes I wonder is it actually a country’s fault if it doesn’t suit you and you are unhappy?

Like you all our income comes from UK, from pensions, and rent. We don’t have superannuation, age late 70’s. My husband had no trouble getting the Qantas credit card, had obviously to answer questions, I assume he met the conditions, We wanted it for air miles as well. Is it worth a try?

We’re fine thanks.

We bought all our crystal glass and very old family glass with us, but packed well in our container, and had no breakages. We enjoy drinking from both modern and crystal glass. Apart from most of the crystal glass given as wedding presents many many years ago which makes it personal, some of it was bought in East Berlin before the wall came down, so reminds us of our life then. Cost wise it might not be worth it, and you can replace your glassware here with crystal or modern, but sometimes memories are more important than cost for some people.

I have lived in Qld on The Sunshine Coast for 19 years, yes it does get humid, for about 4 months of the year, , but apart from the unusual Weather recently the rest of the year is lovely. My son came here when he was 31, and has no intention of leaving, I can’t help you about job opportunities, but there is Berghofer Medical Research in Brisbane.

Really hope it all works out for you xM

We have used Wise every month for years to transfer money as our income is from the UK, there has never ever been a problem, quick and efficient, the money is usually in our bank the next day.

We had no problem at all, getting a credit card when we got ours years ago even though we were on the 410 temporary visa. We are now citizens, all our income comes from UK, is guaranteed income for life from pensions, I don’t know anything about rules changing, but had no problem getting a credit card from Qantas a couple of months ago for the air miles. I do find here that if you don’t fit ‘the norm’ unless you are lucky enough to find someone switched on, you face an uphill battle to get them to understand. Ask to speak someone higher up, or check out other banks, and threaten to move your account, Hope all is well apart from that. x M

As the 410 visa was stopped in 2005, and the new very expensive 405 visa started, there must have been a good reason, there were rumours of rorts, for the government to end the 410. and then also ending the new 405 in 1918? The 405 seemed such a lucrative one for the government, I thought they were on a winner. The reality of starting a new type of 410, is that there would possibly be thousands and thousands and thousands who would go on it, all getting older, and getting too expensive for them and their families to cover and then trying desperately to get government help. Perhaps that is what happened to people on both visas? we had to re-apply for our visas, initially every 2 years, then extended to 4 years, before then extended to 10, if we couldn’t get the visa renewed we had to leave, this did happen, so there is a level of insecurity on this type of visa. One reason quite a few people I knew who left, was that the cost of living just getting too high, and the exchange rate to the pound getting worse. It was $3 to the pound when we came in 2003, so the prospect of returning to the UK permanently, with free health care was also a deciding factor.

I sometimes wonder if people compare the exchange rate of the Australian dollar to UK pound? Or just look at the million$ price tag 1 million Australian dollars equates to 564 thousand UK pounds, My son’s house in Bristol in good suburb, 1930’s semi, with 3 double bed, one tiny bed, with loft extension, garage too small for one car, and just adequate back garden, on a slightly busy road, 750,000 UK pounds. Equates to $ 1, 330,000 My sons house in good Brisbane suburb, modern’sh , 4 double bed, 2 car garage, large block, quiet cul de sac $750,000, equates to 425, 776 UK pounds. Obviously just one example, but interesting

Obviously I don’t know your financial situation, or where you live at present or where you intend to move to in Australia, but you imply you are moving from a cheaper area in UK to a more expensive area in Australia? leaving a lovely house and unable to buy a similar property here, and that you will be financially worse off here. One of the reasons my husband wasn’t keen on us getting PR here, when the opportunity arose after living in Australia for 16 years on a long term temporary retirement visa, was that because all our income comes from UK he thought we would pay lots more tax when would be taxed here as PR. There is actually almost no difference at all! In our case, and apart from our state pension frozen, all other pensions are in our case index linked, so only the exchange rate fluctuations, makes the difference to our income. We certainly don’t have any less quality of life here than our UK friends. I absolutely prefer our life here, love the outdoor lifestyle, plenty free or very cheap activities around, and even though we were 60 with no immediate family here when we moved here we had no problem establishing a good friendship group. I have previously mentioned that if 2 of our children hadn’t followed us to live here, there could have been a thought that now in our late 70’s we might just have considered moving back to UK, not what we wanted to do but perhaps practical? Take care, hope the above might help xM

No one is suggesting that the OP has to do hospitality work, But it’s a good fallback if all else fails. Part of the reason hospitality is so short of staff, as explained to me on Hamilton Island, Is that the island and industry was heavily dependent on back packers, the island was packed, but many outlets closed. and I know from a family member that it’s the same in Sydney. Tracy Grimshaw highlighted this on her program.