MelbournePhom

Hi everyone! I've been in Australia on and off for nearly 3 years now. I've been working around 60% of the time in Australia, but changing jobs quite a bit and working as a contractor is difficult to know how long you'll be working where, I also spent 6 months working in the UK during this time, so I was paying off my student loan during that time. Now I've got steady work over here for the coming year, I've looked into paying my student loan back. I've filled out the overseas income assessment form, and declared my earnings, but am wondering if there will be any issue if they look into my previous earnings over here? (and can they?) I've read some nightmare stories on this site this morning, it almost makes you scared of contacting SLC after a while incase it flags you up and they hit you with crazy fines. There must be some gaps in my employment from their side... I've made a voluntary payment just now of like £250 just to pay something like what they might ask per month. Once I send this letter off to them, does anyone have any experience of how they get into contact? Also does anyone know if they allow you to make payments monthly yourself via UK card? I'm happy to do that instead of a direct debit as I really don't like the idea they can take money directly from my account... Cheers!

Hi there, I had been renting a room in outer Melbourne for around $750 per month. I had been there for 4 months and moved out when I came back for Christmas. When I moved in I paid one months rent as bond. My housemate said that when I moved out he would deduct some bills (I know there were 1 or 2 to pay) and then send me the remaining money. However since moving out and flying back home to England he hasn't been replying to my facebook messages, and to irritate me further, I can see he is reading them with the "Seen at x:xxpm" marks on them. So I am now starting to think he isn't going to pay me. And I am not back in Melbourne for another 2-3 weeks, and I think he might have been planning to leave the house now I think about it. I've been thinking of mailing the real estate company he has leased the property from the explain what's happened, but I don't think they will help as it's not to do with them. If anyone has any ideas that would be helpful. It's seriously been annoying me over Christmas...

As far as I knew if your PR had lapsed and you left the country then you can claim your super back. However once you become a citizen you could potentially move back to Oz at any age so you then can't access the money until retirement.