CollegeGirl

Hi n1ck - On another forum I frequent, most people are seeing their second-stage 100 visas granted in 3-6 months these days.

If you haven't applied yet, you may want to rethink that. If you travel to Australia on a tourist visa (eVisitor is usually the easiest for you UK folks) on a holiday, and, during that holiday, you decide you want to stay in Australia permanently, you can apply for a Partner Visa onshore without any trouble. At that point, you will be given a Bridging Visa A that will activate as soon as your current three-month stay on your eVisitor expires. This will give you full work rights as soon as it activates. This means within a period of three months you'd have full work rights in Australia - something it sounds like you need ASAP. You would also have full Medicare rights as soon as you apply for the Partner Visa. Not as huge a thing for you folks with reciprocal healthcare rights, but still useful. Do keep in mind that eVisitors are not intended for that purpose - so go over intending to be a tourist. Don't take all your worldly possessions with you. Have actual touristy things to do planned. Be a genuine tourist. People do this every day successfully without issue.

Processing times for the onshore partner visa are 12-15 months, but like Ozmaniac said so perfectly above, he can work during all that time, so the wait shouldn't be TOO troublesome. xx

Yeah, I wouldn't imagine the dog wig industry is very profitable. :laugh: Sorry, couldn't help myself.

A less publicized fact is that if you have chronic (i.e., lifetime) conditions they can also look at the expected cost of your treatment over your lifetime. This is specifically for cases like yours - where there may not be major expenses in the next five years, but expenses could spike and be HUGE after that. Not all information on costing of medicals is easily found online. This is why you can't just go to your own private specialist and have them estimate it. There may be facts you're not aware of in the way Immi panel doctors estimate costs. That's why the advice of someone like George Lombard is so valuable.

And yes - once you apply for a Spouse Visa while he's onshore on a tourist visa, he'll be automatically issued a Bridging Visa A, which will activate once his current stay on his visitor visa is up. Once that happens, he'll have full work & study rights. He will be able to stay legally in Aus with work rights/study rights for the full processing time of the visa. He will also be able to get a temporary Bridging Visa B should he need to leave the country temporarily for any reason during that time. Just a note: tourist visas are not intended to be used to get someone onshore to apply for a partner visa. Make sure he is coming to Australia AS A TOURIST (i.e., doesn't have all his worldly possessions with him, nor all the documents you need to apply for a partner visa, nor a copy of his CV, etc.) with him when he comes over. Once he is in Australia, it is perfectly allowable to decide to stay and to apply for a Partner Visa from a tourist visa. That just can't be your intention when he flies over and enters the country.

Shukar - start here. You can apply for your Permanent Residency (100) online. https://www.immi.gov.au/contacts/forms/partner/ As stated above, there is no additional cost. You will also not have to provide medicals this time around. If you have only lived in Australia since grant of the 309, you will only need to provide a police check from Australia. If you've lived anywhere else for 12 months or more during this time period, you'll need a police check from there as well.

Yep, you can use Opal on Light Rail now. I've found Light Rail to be absolutely unbearably crowded around normal work hours to the point where I actually ended up preferring the bus. But if you're okay standing crammed in like a sardine, I do find their timetables to be *fairly* reliable and the trips to be pretty speedy for the most part.

It is confusing - but the kids don't belong on the forum under "migrating dependents" NOR under "non-migrating dependents" - just where it asks for family members. Putting them under either of those dependent categories will trigger the system to think they need a visa and you'll be requested to get medicals, etc. for them which they don't need as citizens (as correctly stated above! ). They really do need a better way to account for kids with their own citizenship. It's way too confusing for people in that situation who think "Hey, my kids are dependent on me, I should list them here!" (a perfectly logical conclusion to draw, but completely incorrect, heh. )

No, it's not a problem that you didn't register your relationship until then. If you're both on the lease from Sep 2012, that's concrete proof you were living together more than two years ago, and as Christel said, with further evidence you've continued to live together that entire time, and since you have a baby together, that means straight to PR for you. No special form to fill out. They'll automatically send you straight to PR. It wouldn't hurt to mention in your application somewhere that you believe you're eligible to be considered for the PR (100) right away due to being de facto longer than two years and having a child together. If they do somehow forget to put you straight through to PR (it happens, but very rarely) you can contact them and let them know (nicely) and ask them to please correct it. They generally do this quickly. Best wishes!

Actually, the cost was $1145 quite some time before that. The 820 cost for a PMV holder didn't go up with the last price increase, fortunately.

On another forum, someone mentioned they called the FBI and the person they spoke with actually expedited the processing of their prints the third time as they had been rejected twice before as unreadable. Maybe try that. Get multiple sets of prints done when you go this time and send them all.

My husband is always talking about how we can't afford to have kids for a couple of years yet. He is the sensible one for sure. I'm not sure if showing him this thread would help or hurt my case, LOL.

WOW - that is some of the most egregiously bad advice I've heard of from a MARA-registered agent (that second one) and I've heard some REALLY bad info! That's scary.

Not sure what the GMC is - assuming it's a UK thing? This was in the US so no chance the lovely UK folks on this forum will ever have to deal with her. I probably should have reported her, but quite frankly I was worried I wasn't going to pass the medical (I have a couple of chronic conditions) and I didn't want to rock the boat.

I got a breast exam too and I was in my early thirties. No history of breast cancer in my family at all. During the exam, the panel doctor touched me like she was having to run her fingers through a bucket of snails or something, and made negative comments about my body that were barely within the confines of medically-appropriate. I walked out of there when it was over and cried in my car. I was really glad it was over. Mine's the only experience I've heard like that, though. Still makes me sad to think back on it, however. Not cool.

Is there a reason you didn't include him on your application? If he's dependent on you, living with you and financially supported by you, he may have qualified. Were you concerned he wouldn't pass the medical? If that was your concern, he's unlikely to qualify for PR down the road as all types of PR require the same medical.

Rebecca, if you know something but not all the details, give them what you DO know so they know you're not trying to hide something. I searched through itineraries I had in my email, hotel receipts, etc. to get as detailed dates as I could. Then I included a note that said like "Travelled to Lisbon, Portugal for approximately 7 days in June 2006" or whatever. They're used to people from the EU/UK doing a ton of traveling. If you know you've taken trips to a country but can't remember even the year you could say "approximately 2004 - can't remember exact year" or something along those lines. If they see you're giving them all the information you have (even better if you tell them what steps you've taken to get information you couldn't find) they'll know you're not trying to hide anything from them.

I agree - contact an agent. But having a child together is one of the only circumstances under which they will STILL grant you PR if your relationship breaks down. I wouldn't worry. You don't have a legal right to take your child out of the country without the other parent's okay - so they're not going to force you to leave Australia and leave your own child behind. A MARA-registered agent can help you work through things with Immi so you can be 100% sure the outcome is what it is supposed to be. Hope this info at least helps you sleep better until you can talk to an agent!

Oh, okay, when you said you only sent in a few months' worth I was surprised - so you've already sent in all this covering a four year period and they still asked for more? Wow. That actually surprises me - your list above looks like pretty solid evidence to me. I wonder if there's any chance they didn't see the evidence somehow - did you apply online? Maybe send your CO a list like you detailed above (bullet points, though, so it's easier to read) and say you just wanted to make sure she could see all of this on your account, and confirm she really does need more.

This is your problem right here. You need to provide evidence that you have been de facto (living together and sharing finances) for 12* months. That is the most important/basic requirement of the de facto visa. Not sure why you didn't think you needed more than a few months' worth, but I'd get on sending a year's worth ASAP. (*You didn't mention this, but if you had periods of temporary separation AFTER you started living together, that's okay, as long as you can provide evidence that you stayed in touch during those times and continued to share finances, etc.)

You might want to talk to a MARA-registered agent about the "usually resident" requirement for partner visa sponsors who are permanent residents. Sometimes it can be possible to prove you are "usually resident" if you have a lease in Australia, a job offer, etc. in hand, but it can take some finagling, and it may be necessary for you to move to Australia for a while first. A MARA agent can point you in the right direction.

In other words - if you had brought your previous spouse over later on a 309/100 or 820/801 instead of including her on your 176, you would have been sponsoring her for a Partner Visa, and you would have to wait 5 years before sponsoring someone else on one. But since she was on your 176, there's no five-year limitation. Hopefully one of those two posts clears it up?

A Partner Visa is subclass 309/100 or 820/801 (and depending on context sometimes include the PMV 300). Though you sponsored a partner on your previous visa, your previous visa was a skilled visa, and your partner was a secondary applicant on a skilled visa, NOT a partner visa applicant. You did not sponsor your previous partner on a Partner Visa (309/820), you sponsored her on a skilled visa. That's where your confusion ins coming from.

I couldn't be happier for you, Claire! That's the best news. We used George as well - he's fab.