LittleLakeGirl

But it is crappy! :laugh: I'd like my webbed feet to come from spending too much time in the sea, not wading through puddles, though on the plus side all the rain does make for some epic mountain biking mud!

I have to say I do really love the UK but our reasons for leaving are the opportunity available to my OH to really progress and have a proper career in his line of work that just hasn't been available to him in the UK, and the weather. I'm a proud Lancastrian and do my best to put on a cheerful face in most weathers but four non-existent and soaking wet summers in a row is really really starting to get to me, and it's definitely getting to my sun bunny hubby, the last truly clear sky we saw was back in May and hearing about the recent temps in London is like rubbing salt into the wound. I want to be able to put my washing out on the veranda (yes we have one here) without having to wait three days for it to dry or having to put the heating on in July because our north facing lounge hasn't seen even a hint of sunlight in days and it's bloomin' freezin' in there!

Cheers Guys, been looking at the Hills district and have found a couple of potentials in Castle & Baulkham Hills.

So, after what seems like forever my OH has finally received a written offer of a job based in Glendenning NSW, we'll be going over on a 457 visa and need advice about where's good to live locally in that area but still has decent transport links for me to get into the city as his salary alone won't cover us. All advice would be much appreciated.

A good tip when you start narrowing down your options is to try to find Tweeters in the area you're thinking of moving to. Follow the local police forces, neighborhood officers etc, add local councils, businesses and news outlets for info on an area. For example in the UK GMP & Hampshire police have great twitter feeds with lots of local info. These kinds of accounts can give you a good flavour of an area before you even get there.

Well, I'm hugely biased but as a Lancashire lass I just love Manchester. The house prices are pretty reasonable, the transport links are, er, being vastly upgraded - although everyone moans about the metrolink - the IT industry is pretty buoyant here, especially since the Beeb relocated lots of their departments - including online services, see http://www.bbc.co.uk/jobs/north/future-media-and-technology.shtml - to Salford, the countryside is on the doorstep wherever you live and there are loads of leisure / eating out / shopping opportunities even in the 'burbs. I don't know about schools because we don't have kids but there are plenty of good options both public & private & catchment areas for good schools don't necessarily impact on house prices. Though you'd likely get a better deal to the North of the city rather than the South. Good luck with your move.

Yes, this. That old 'After 6 years I'll be free & clear' is a complete fallacy, just ask anyone with a CCJ against their name; they'll tell you it's really not that simple & if you find that you do need / want to come back to the UK you best be sure that you've got an awful lot of savings because credit will be nigh on impossible to come by. Have a nosy through the money saving expert boards if you want an insight into how people actually go on with these kinds of black marks on their credit files.

Wow! That is one helluva lot of debt is my first thought (I thought the couple of grand on my card was a lot). My second thought is this. Don't just ditch the cards. Sell the house, pay off the cards, bank the difference and then pay what you were paying on your minimum payments into a savings account because I'm imagining at that rate of debt you'll soon make up the difference. Considering the current economic climate and the likelyhood that housing prices will never reach what they did in the early 2000's your 'investment' is likely at its peak. There is another thing to bear in mind, if you do default on your cards the lender can chase you through the courts in the UK even if you're not there, and if they discover you have property in the UK they can apply for an order to be placed on the property which means that the debt will have to be paid on its sale and you'll be no better off anyway. Do also bear in mind that if you are renting the property out & your cards are still registered to that address then you could cause your tenants all kinds of hassle. Read here re charging orders http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/index/your_money/money_management_index_ew/action_your_creditor_can_take_index_ew/charging_orders.htm If you had no UK assets you could risk it if you feel morally comfortable with it but as it stands you could land yourself in real difficulties. Just my twopenneth.

Well, sorta. Dependent on the mortgage you're on you could be quids in but in many cases the homeowner mortgages are equivalent to local rental values so people can end up out of pocket, so you offset the expenses against the income & usually it just means you don't pay any tax rather than being taxed on your profits. Thanks for all the feedback folks. This is causing real tension in our household & I'm still not sure what to do for the best. If we were going out on a PR visa I'd agree that the best thing to do would be to just sell the property. But we're not, we're going on a 457 and despite Mr LLG's confidence that he can do the job & it will all be fine & we won't need the house, he's not actually the one taking the biggest risk, I am. I'll be leaving a secure job to have to go & find work again & coming up against potential prejudice because of the eyesight condition I mentioned in the health threads, additionally, because he's going on a 457 we won't have the luxury of waiting for the house to sell so we may still have the mortgage to deal with whatever happens. The must frustrating thing about this whole situation is that, because I (we) have other products with the bank & have a longstanding relationship with them every other department seems to want to throw money at me, be it upping the credit limit on my cards & overdraft or offering me personal loans by post, phone & every time I go into the branch. Yet they won't do the one thing we'd like them to do. EDIT: I realise perhaps that my post sounds a little negative. I really don't want it to be as I'm as keen to make this move & try something completely new.

Sounds like the stores over there work the same way they do here, meaning well paid small teams. The ad will probably say store assistant, which means you do pretty much everything, packing / unpacking, stacking, checkout, customer service etc etc. I think the hours are quite long but the staff at our local store (in the UK) seem to really like working there. the staff turnover is low, there is a chance for progression - store manager salaries are very good - and because the stores are so small you get to know your customers too. Go for it I'd say.

I don't think it'd hurt for you to try to attend any and all the of the many migration expos that happen throughout the year, quite often you'll find employers and employment agencies willing to sponsor 457 applicants at these kinds of events. Alternatively, try researching companies on the internet & contacting them directly, be prepared to hear nothing back from 99% of them but you could just get lucky. (That's how Mr LLG, got his offer).

That's what I'm hoping they'll realise after the medical. I suppose it's possible I may need to go to the eye hospital again for confirmation but as they signed me off at 16 & I haven't been since I was 19 - and then it was only out of curiosity because I wanted more information about my condition; no one had ever fully explained the causes, only the symptoms & for years my mum was sure it was because she'd been run over while pregnant! But then along came web 1.0 & I could research all I wanted - I may not even need to do that.

Oh, great stuff, thanks

Any chance you could run this through the ol' spreadsheet... 1. 2006 Mazda MX-5 2.0L Sport 6sp Manual, 57,000 miles, No aircon 2. UK Market (Dealer) value £7,500 - £8,500 3. Aus Market value (best guess on this because the exact model names differ somewhat) Private price $19,800 - $22,500 Cheers.

Oh, do you have any idea where we might start with this? We've had a couple of quotes from shipping companies that have come in at around £3K for our two cats. I've looked around and while information for shipping pets to the USA & Canada seems plentiful, information for Oz seems a little thin on the ground. & to the OP, you're absolutely not a horrible person, I can't tell you how much I've agonised over this, especially as my mum's house would be the perfect place for them to go but her other half is not a cat fan (even though he makes a beeline for our little ginger moggy every time he visits).

This bit I knew about (work for an accountant) but thanks for the heads up about agents deducting the gross figure.

Hi all Firstly, apologies for all the questions, we've actually been on this Aussie track for a while now but as it now seems like it's all going to happen I'm finally asking the questions that have been niggling... My husband is on track for a job offer (457) that should, fingers crossed, come to fruition in the next few months - face to face interviews done, now just waiting for something suitable to come up or be created for him. Our intention is for him to go out first and I'll follow (if we could go together that'd be great but I'm not sure it'll be possible) but I have one worry with my medical. I'm partially sighted, I have nystagmus, astigmatism & nerve damage caused by albinism (Yes, I might sound crazy going to somewhere like Australia with a condition like that but it's not severe - no white hair & red eyes, except if you take my photo, & I'd take exactly the same precautions with regard to sun safety as I'd take sat in my back garden here, or on holiday ie. factor 50, big hats & shade where possible). The condition itself is stable, the only degeneration of my vision I'll experience will be down to age, and my prescription is comparatively weak, no where near the plus or minus 10 you need for free glasses here. It is possible that in the future I might benefit from treatments like stem cell regeneration but it is not a condition that requires any kind of treatment to maintain a standard of living. I work full time & claim no benefits in the UK, the only things I am entitled to are free off peak local public transport and assistance from the DWP through the Access to Work scheme, which amounts to a larger monitor for my PC, a CCTV magnifier (a glorified magnifying glass) and Zoomtext software for my PC, which I use only occasionally (all these items are 'mine' and go with me wherever I work). There are certain jobs my condition precludes me from doing, anything that involved driving or a certain standard for eyesight (police, fire etc) But other than that I'm only limited by other peoples' preconceptions Has anyone had any experience in going for medicals with conditions like this? Has anyone had a rejection because of something like this? I'd hate to scupper my hubby's chances because of it. I had an informal conversation a while ago with a doctor who undertakes medical examinations for visas & he couldn't give me an answer as he'd never had a case like me. The closest case he had was a family with a blind child but there's no comparison. Cheers

Thanks, yes, the insurance issue was certainly a concern too. It is a crazy situation though, it almost makes more sense to leave the property empty, even though I'm loathe to do that too, especially as all the agents who've seen it think they could easily rent it out.

Quite a simple question really, do you rent out the property you owned (lived in i.e. not on a buy-to-let mortgage) in the UK before moving and did you bother to get consent to let on it from your mortgage lender? The reason I ask is this, we have a property which isn't in negative equity but, is unlikely to sell at anything near like we paid for it right now, doesn't have enough equity for anyone to offer a remortgage, and the our lender's consent to let terms are prohibitive - up to £1,500 admin fee and up to 6.9% on the interest rate, which means that we would be effectively subsidising a tenant to live in the house to the tune of up to £300 per month, when you consider that the going rate for rentals locally is pretty much what we're paying on our mortgage at present, then you factor in landlord insurance, agents fees and accountancy fees for a UK tax return (though I could possibly discount these because of my current place of work). I realise the implications (in basic terms it's mortgage fraud) but I can't be the only one who thinks that effectively paying someone else to live in their property is ludicrous. I've had unofficial advice from a mortgage advisor / estate agent here in the UK that a number of their single property landlords are in similar situations and haven't bothered to inform their mortgage providers but I'm a cautious creature so I'm looking for some more input. Thanks all

This is precisely the reason we decided to ditch the 176 in favour of a 457 option which came up. Of course there are pros & cons involved in both but the further down the 176 route we went the more the goalposts seemed to shift; we must've moved to the four corners of the continent without even having set foot on a plane & our options were rapidly shrinking due to our own set of circumstances. Out of interest, I take it your current visa is for NT's? What made you decide to choose there to start with? I wish you luck with trying to change it.