Grecia

Thank you! I saw that on a couple of sites, but wasn't sure if I was looking at up-to-date info. Pet Air's own site says that if you are emigrating in "more than 18 months? Do nothing" so I thought it might have been changed to 18 months.

I asked first! lol :laugh::wink:

Not specifically a question for Pet Air: just for anyone who knows the answer... :wink: I know that a dog cannot travel to Australia until 180 days after the (successful) RNATT at the earliest. But what is the latest date after the test the dog can travel? One of my dogs' rabies jab is due this week and I thought it might make sense to get her tested too - while she still has plenty of antibodies!

And do bear in mind that the partner visa can take 10-14 months - or sometimes longer - to be granted :sad:

Yes, we're doing that now. OH has been working in Sydney for the last two months, because he was offered a better job there than he's been able to get in the UK for several years. Unfortunately it's not well paid though - they are kind of exploiting him. I'm still in the UK with our 2 dogs. I wouldn't recommend it. For a start it's no fun trying to run two separate households (in two of the world's most expensive cities) on the same money you had running one household. Communications are sporadic: OH's current home has no internet or landline and mobile reception is bad. If I can't get hold of him I have no way of knowing if he is merely out of range or flatlining in intensive care somewhere. It's not like he is doing FIFO on an oil rig where his whereabouts are monitored by someone 24/7. It's a bit stressful. My social life has died a death. Not only can I not do 'couply things' anymore, but before if we wanted to go out with friends, we could take it in turns to come home early and let the dogs out. Now I have to do it every night. Small problems become huge obstacles if you can't discuss them with someone - even if that someone wouldn't be much help. I kind of want him to think everything here is always rosy - I don't want him to start thinking maybe Sydney isn't so bad after all and decide to stay there forever! We've kind of been forced into this. OH's career prospects were going down the pan in the UK. If he sticks the job out for 6 months, he will hopefully have 'beefed up' his CV enough to get a decent job over here, or a better paid Aussie job in Somewhere-That-Isn't-Sydney. If the latter, we'll go over and join him. I can earn more than him in the UK; he has the potential to earn a lot more than me in Oz. We'll see... although this uncertainty is no fun either... The others commenting on here who have been in long-distance relationships all seem to have done it for economic reasons as well. If I were you, I would seriously not consider doing this unless you absolutely *have* to.

As far as I know you have to keep Immigration informed of your whereabouts anyway when you are on a temporary visa, so we just put our current address and updated our file using form 929 when we moved.

Depends what you mean by 'Central Business District' - if you're talking West End, it might well be only 20 minutes travel from Chelsea. If you're talking The City, I'm afraid it's about the same travel time as from our place in Zone 5... In which case, Stratford would be a better comparison and you can certainly get a lovely new one-bed flat there for under £1,250 pcm.

"Equivalent" in what sense? Did you not see my post above where I said we rented a 2-bed HOUSE "just outside" London for £1,400? We now rent a 3-bed semi "just outside" London for £1,400 a month. And both of those are "decent", thank you very much. :err:

To give you some idea, the take home pay from £40k is about £2,500 a month. Up until 6 months ago we were renting a two-bed end-of-terrace in Zone 5 for £1,400 a month. It was just over an hour into the City door-to-door. With a monthly travelcard, transport is £212 a month. We were paying about £150 a month council tax. That leaves £738 a month for food, utilities and everything else. Remember petrol is double the price. Incidentally my OH is South African, and although he has been over here over 15 years, he complains about the weather constantly! :wink:

Good luck! The only person I know in Illawarra lives in a rented house, and she has three or four dogs, ducks, chooks and a cat or two. She also home-boards other people's dogs. So there are definitely pet-friendly* properties out there. :smile: *Not "pet-free" as I said in my first post!

Bit of a left-field question, but do you have a property in the UK you are letting out? We've found that it really, really helps getting pet-free rentals, or getting landlords to make their properties pet-friendly, if they know we are also landlords ourselves. We've also found that not stating the breed of dog and just saying "medium sized" helps - our GSD is small and fluffy, and many people assume she's a crossbreed anyway. The usual suggestion is putting references for your pet in your 'rental pack': from the vet, previous landlords, breed club, dog walker, etc. Maybe not a photo if you are understating her size... lol

I didn't realise death in service benefit excluded pre-existing conditions - I thought all employees got it. But, if not, I'd say this is one for the final interview (the one with HR): "My current employer has some really great benefits, like the death in service benefit. It's x times your salary, and everyone gets it regardless of age or pre-existing conditions. Do you have that here as well?" That way you're not actually saying/implying that *you* have a pre-existing condition, just asking a general question.

In addition to what the others have said: we applied for the second stage partner visa offshore, and the CO will probably ask you to provide a statement as to why you are not in Australia. Nothing arduous - we just submitted a page of A4 and they seemed happy with that.

Funnily enough, I've always found the advice on here to be a bit "blue sky" regarding Sydney. Although I didn't post much, I was glued to the forums for months before I went over. Nothing on here prepared me for the culture shock of having to compete with 30-40 other people for what I would consider "student houses" (ugly 70s decor, broken windows not repaired, etc.) in not-so-great areas (Blacktown and environs), dealing with arrogant letting agents who considered themselves too important to even talk to the plebs who wanted to rent properties through them. Bear in mind, I'm an Aus citizen, had a job in finance lined up, and had a very comprehensive rental pack (20 pages plus) - still no chance! Yes, there may be 4-bed properties on the websites at a reasonable price, but what's the competition for them like..?

I'm sure I remember being told by our MA told that this requirement was only for onshore applications. In any case, we submitted some really old ones with our first stage, and when we asked the CO if she wanted them re-done (I think they were over a year old by the time we got a CO!) she said they were fine.

People used to front load the police checks and medicals back in the day. But as both of these are only valid for 12 months, it is not worth doing that any more with the current visa processing times.

Sounds like a description of my NAB account: no debit card, just a cr*ppy cashpoint card you can't use to pay for stuff in shops. You can open the account online from the UK though.

Just a thought, dunno if it's possible... but I wonder if it might be worth withdrawing your application and reapplying with a UK address (you did say your hubby hadn't moved over permanently yet...?) As I said above, we applied at the same time as you - but offshore - and had a completely different experience: we were emailed twice by the DIBP before we'd even finished uploading the evidence and got the visa grant in less than a month. We're only 'de-facto' too, not married...

We applied offshore and at around the same time as Nemesis. Presumably it's the offshore bit that saved us 10+ months of waiting...

Isn't the OP asking about the second stage? As I recall it took about a month or so for us, and that was less than a year ago.

What gets me is that DNA evidence is considered reliable enough to convict somebody of murder, but not reliable enough to determine what breed a dog is - for that you apparently need a policeman with a tape measure :confused: (But I guess that's better than the other way around: DNA determining dog breeds and a copper with a tape measure determining if you get banged up for life or not...) Still, if it's any consolation, the rest of us now face a criminal record and huge fine even if someone so much as "feels threatened" by our dogs - even in our own homes. I've got 2 big ones, so I made sure they both got their Kennel Club Good Citizen awards, and I've got DDA Watch's number on speed dial just in case. When my OH's friend came to stay for the weekend I wanted him to sign a disclaimer - but my OH vetoed that! :wink:

You probably need to speak to an expert on the Dangerous Dogs Act. I would say these people know more about it than anyone else: http://www.ddawatch.co.uk/ If they can't advise you then maybe their lawyers can: http://wheldonlaw.co.uk/ It says they offer a "free telephone consultation"!

Never mind unpasteurised milk - what about unpasteurised cheese? If you eat cheese in France you run a 1 in 5 risk of consuming a 'deadly' unpasteurised variety. Buy some in a deli or restaurant and the danger is likely to be closer to 100% :shocked: Geez, think of all those 66 million "really stupid people" in France munching their delicious way to an early grave, or - to use your words "filling in their entries for the Darwin award". All because they are too dumb to look up the Wikipedia entry for pasteurisation (even though they invented it)... If only they would see sense and tuck into a slab of good ol' Australian "Tasty". It's 100% safe. Not too sure if it's 100% cheese though - think there might be a bit of play-doh or plasticine in the mix there. It's certainly 100% foul (and 100% mis-named). Actually, I think I'll start my own change.org petition to ban the stuff. But first I'm going to play "cheese Russian roulette" with a nice slice of aged Manchego! :wink:

My OH was asked for a police certificate for Australia even though he hadn't lived there for over 10 years and had just been back for a holiday in the meantime. When we queried this, the CO apologised for the error and agreed he didn't need it. Maybe the OP should wait to hear back from his CO before doing anything in case it was just a mistake...

Can anyone just post a job vacancy on here? Or does someone check out they're genuine first?