TheGrahams

Not sure. Probably easier to open a Great Southern account for this child and hope things are easier by the time the youngest turns 18!

What bank was she with? Just been speaking to nationwide on the live chat and they are adamant they will send a cheque in GBP and there is no other way!

Oh haha! 10k is a very large amount to me!! However, taking into consideration £-$ plus his earnings from work, around 5k per year he will be well over his tax free threshold.

How so? The boys will get around £10K each as Granny thought this the best way to save for them

Yes, the cheque converting bank sounds best but my concern is my youngest still has 2 years to wait and the likelihood of cheques even being a thing then is slim and also I don't know if he has to go in person to collect the cheque. The more I dig, the more it seems it may be the specific bank that is antiquated so I could, whilst still the registered account holder, switch to a more modern bank that has a process already set up! Who'd have tthought moving money between countries would be so difficult in 2024!

He will be over 18 when the money matures but yes we are aware he may have to pay tax on it.

I'm not sure if this is possible as they are not UK residents.

The children don't have a UK bank account and can't get one as they are not UK residents. I still have an active HSBC account but when the fund matures it is in their name

OK, so the cheque thing may be solved. Has anyone successfully transferred a CTF into an Aus bank account?

My kids have children trust funds back in the UK which the grandparents have been paying into. My eldest turns 18 this year and the youngest in 2 years. Has anyone had any luck in getting theirs transferred to an Aus bank? Granny has been in touch with nationwide and they said a cheque will be issued but Aus banks don't accept foreign cheques anymore!

Woah, I didn't mean for this post to turn into a slanging match and I am not sure what all the qantas references are all about?! I suppose some people have good luck and others don't. I was just saying we had a good service. And all our boxes said was our surname and Brisbane, they made it fine!

We had our stuff delivered last week and I thought I would tell our tale as I know how valuable these posts were to us when we were deciding who to go with. We had 260cuft and got quotes from 5 companies. In the end we went with Crown. They were great, our stuff was packed up within 3 hours and sent on it's way to wait for the rest of the container to fill up. The following day we had a phone call to say that our stuff was on it's way up to Leeds to fill up the rest of a container, a couple of weeks later it was on the open sea. Crown kept us informed the whole way from when it was loaded and during it's journey, sending us tracking information regularly. Everyone was friendly and helpful and emails were answered quickly. The container arrived in Brisbane exactly when it was estimated to and it took 2 weeks to get through AQIS. They held back 5 photo albums that had dried flowers on the covers which they wanted $300 to fumigate or they could destroy the flowers for nothing. This was done quickly and the albums were sent on to us the week following our stuff arriving. Our stuff arrived exactly as it was when it left the UK, one kitchen mixing bowl was broken, but to be fair it was already chipped. Everything else was fine. So all in all a great service, we are so glad we chose Crown. Oh yeah and another thing we really liked was that all the AQIS fees are included so the amount we paid in the UK was it, no bills to pay over here. I hope this helps some peoples decision making I know it's hard

Hi, we went from Cornwall to Brisbane then up to the sunshine coast and used Crown. We are booked in to get our stuff delivered on Monday (so excited!). So far they have been excellent right from the first phone call to get a quote. They were friendly, professional, kept us informed all along the way from when our stuff went, right through it's journey across the seas. It has gone through customs and cleared it (except 5 photo albums that were made from handmade paper - they are being destroyed at no extra cost, not the photos though, they will get sent out at a later date). So far we have been really happy with their service

You may also find popping into some backpackers in the city may have some contacts

Hi, We live on the Sunshine Coast and in my opinion it's too far to commute to the CBD, but lots of people do. You are looking at 1-2 hours into the city at rush hour. We are in Caloundra, so relativley south in the sunshine coast. But there is the train, from Landsborough the train takes 1hr 20mins to Roma Street Station (Brisbane CBD) and is very frequent. Again, in my eyes it's too far, but then I don't like to commute. The Sunshine COast is a great place to live, esp with little ones, but that's my opinion and that's why we live here. As someone has already said you can't make that decision till you have been there. Over the last 8 years we have lived here, Melbourne, back in the UK and back here to the Sunshine Coast. So it's taken us a while to realize this is where we want to be.

Can't help with where they should be as we are in QLD and mine are all school age (My 4 year old will turn 5 in May 2013 and starts prep in Jan 2013) But I worked in day care centres in Melbourne, which are plentiful. Most open at 7am and close at 6pm, if you needed them to in care that long. They won't do 'school work' with the children, but as they are so little that's not a bad thing. As for before and after school clubs/care, I think that depends on the school.

It takes at least an hour to get into KL centre depending on the time you land. We landed there early Friday evening and it took us over 2 hours of standstill traffic to get into the centre, we were glad we were staying there for a few nights, I wouldn't have fancied doing that if I had to go back to the airport again soon. Although, having said that you could go in by train, which would avoid all of that! Really depends what time of day you will there, chinatown is great of an evening. the petronas towers are good to look at, but going up them costs a lot and tickets are limited. The parkland around them is nice to while away a few hours. If you have kids, the petronas science museum is awesome too. KL is really all about shopping though, if you like shopping and have spare cash then it is a great place to shop. The lake gardens are nice but the weather there at the mo is very hot and wet so strolling around a garden isn't that great, although we had small children with us, so that made a difference.

I am yet to find spelt, but I haven't really been looking yet, only done 2 supermarket shops. Bought normal wheat flour and it seemed quite resonable. I have the details of a wholefoods co-op here on the sunshine coast, which is how I used to get things like that in UK, so i will be checking that out soon.

We are currently renting a holiday appartment for 4 weeks. We are 2 weeks in, hubby has work and we have one application in on a rental, but still looking. We found holiday accomodation was the cheapest option we could find.

Thanks guys. Me thinks I need a dongle

Thanks Michelle, will pop into optus or telstra on monday

We have been in Aus now for a week and we are in our temporary accomodation on the sunshine Coast. We have sorted a mobile out but using the internet is proving interesting, as we are currently taking it in turns with one of us staying with the kids and the other going to a cafe with free wifi and doing the stuff we need to do. At the mo this is ok, but it is a bit annoying. We have no landline and don't want to be tied into a mobile contract as we want to get a bundle when we move in to our own place. What did you all do when you landed? I have heard of prepaid internet cards, where do you get them, do you need a landline? Thanks, Michelle (Absolutley loving it here )

We will be arriving in Brisbane on Monday and will be in the city for 3 days before hiring a car to go up to the Sunshine Coast. We wanted to sort out car seats before hiring the car as we don't want to fork out loads for hire seats. Our boys are 4 and 6 and both very tall. Is there somewhere in Brisbane city that we can go to see what type of seat they need? (I am thinking of something like a mothercare equivalent?) I have found a few but they all seem to be out of the city and we won't have transport yet

Didn't have the same visa, but had loads of birth certificate issues. We had to obtain full ones for those of us that only had short versions. Very easy to do online.

Thanks guys, will keep you posted x