Kpnuts

1 hour ago, LindaH27 said:

Thank you for the info. The problem with being on a bridging visa is that you are only classed as a temporary resident which obviously doesn’t give the same  benefits. The obvious one that springs to mind is that she wouldn’t be entitled to full Medicare and any marriage or defacto  relationship/children  would probably negate the criteria for LRR and as she’s a young woman she will most likely meet someone.  Recent estimates have said 50 years for LRR as very few of those visas are available. Have you spoken to an agent to determine if there is any other route?  More posts on this 
 

https://www.pomsinoz.com/topic/210635-remaining-relative-visa/?tab=comments#comment-2569197

Well, she has all of the benefits and has met no hurdles so far with Medicare. I have studied her options and so far I don’t believe any agent would come up with other solutions. I did take advice from two agents a while ago and the answers they provided were incorrect. Her level of qualification doesn’t hit the skills list and the TSS has certain adverse conditions, notwithstanding the commitment to her working on the mines for several years! She has had two relationships that could have secured a Partner visa but not to be. I give her 100% credit for backing away and not using the system. Hopefully Mr Right will come along where she can change to a Partner stream. I think this is the most likely route otherwise she will be 72 by the time the LRR is granted!!! To be honest, the Government shouldn’t offer such a stream but for her, it is keeping her in Aus for the time being so all good so far. 

15 hours ago, LindaH27 said:

Check with an agent. Bridging  visas sometimes have work limitations/restrictions  on them. I heard of one lady with remaining relative visa application being given a no work restriction on her bridging visa. She applied to have it removed and her request was denied. 
 

Which visas has she had in last 6 years - did none of them give a way to applying for PR in her own right? 
 

similar discussion here

 

She started with WH visa for two years then onto Student visa for 2 years which led to LRR application. Granted Bridging Visa on same terms as her Student Visa which gives her the right to work full time as she is no longer under a course of study. She has been offered a TSS but looking between the lines I think she is better off where she is. Our family are in Aus as Citizens or PR except for her at the mo.

15 hours ago, Marisawright said:

That's not a fair statement. Just take a look around the world and see the attitudes of other countries.   If you were an Australian wanting to bring your daughter into the UK, you would have no chance at all.   

 

My daughter has been in Aus since 2014 and gone through various visas. A hard working girl that that has paid her taxes, stamp duties etc. She wants to move forward but can’t. I withdraw my comment as I don’t want to politicise my post question. We are lucky to be in a great country but don’t want to split the family. Options are few.

2 hours ago, ali said:

If it's a last remaining relative visa, do they still have to meet the criteria at time of grant - just thinking if she had a partner/child in the waiting period if  that would put a spanner in the works? (genuine query - it just came to me reading your post)

 

I guess you are correct. I think that once she is on the queue she will have to notify any change of personal / health circumstance. I also suspect that at the time of finalisation she will have to go through more rigour. Mind you, by then she will be in her seventies and I will be pushing up daisies . If she does meet someone along the way then she will simply change sub class. She has already been in Aus for 6 years and paid her taxes etc, it is just a shame the Aus family values are not as sincere as they make out. 

5 hours ago, Marisawright said:

Don't assume anything based on what year is being processed now.  Just look at the parent visas as an example.   Currently they are processing visas from early 2016, so you might think there's a 4 year wait.  However, there have been massive spikes in applications since then.  So anyone who applied in 2018 will be waiting at least 6 years.  Someone who applied this year could be waiting 8 years.  An agent like @paulhand may have some idea of the likely wait time for the Remaining Relative visa, based on his clients' experiences.

A temporary work visa never "leads to" permanent residency - it's far from certain.  After the qualifying period, she MAY have an opportunity to apply for permanent residency, IF the employer is still in business and IF they are still willing to sponsor her and IF the occupation is still on the list.  And even then, there's a high refusal rate.  In her shoes and in the current financial climate, I wouldn't be risking it. 

Anyway, I'm a bit confused - to be eligible for a temporary work visa, her occupation must be on the skilled list.  So why doesn't she apply for permanent residency now?

She works on the mines and has only just been told that they would offer her a Temp visa.  I just don’t want her to go down the road of waiting 4 years before qualifying for PR. She’s a young girl and am sure her circs will change in the duration of the LRR. At least she will keep some flexibility should things go wrong. Her only downside is that she is unable to get a mortgage.

Yes, we acknowledge the long wait period but it’s the only way forward at present. IMMI are processing visas queued in 2011 so a 9 year wait at present. She has just been given the option of a Temp Work visa leading to PR in 5 years but comes with its own risk of job stability. 

My daughter submitted her application 18 months ago and has been issued with a Bridging Visa. In the past couple of weeks, she has been contacted by IMMI to provide further information relating to police checks, family sponsor and character assessment etc. She has now been asked to attend for a medical. 

Is this information simply for her to be put on the queue or is she nearing finalisation? It seems a bit early to me but not sure if Covid has influenced the speed of visa issue?

Hindsight is wonderful but hy on earth didn't she go the Partner route straight away?
Professional advice would be sensible, as its now quite complex.

My daughter came to Aus 5 years ago and has been on Working Holiday Visas and more latterly a Student Visa. My wife an I are now Permanent Residents having arrived in Aus in a 143 two years ago. Due to my daughters Student Visa coming to a close, we have put her on to a Last Remaining Relative stream. A Bridging Visa was granted and obviously she follows the same rules as her Student Visa albeit she is in full time work as she is not following any course of study.

Almost 2 years ago she met a guy who is an Aus Citizen. They have bought a house together and the property is in joint title. Due to the relationship she would like to change her visa to a Partner Visa to enable a more realistic time before she is granted PR notwithstanding their wish to get married.

She has picked up some info that if she now changes her visa application from a Last Remaining Relative to a Partner Visa, she will lose her work rights?

I would have thought her work rights would remain the same as her last substantive visa?

Any views please?

On 08/08/2018 at 12:50, Alan Collett said:

As an aside, remember to claim the 8% UPP tax deduction when including the State Pension on your Australian tax returns.

Best regards.

Thanks Alan, I was unaware of this. I have had a look at UPP online and have downloaded the form. It is all gobbledygook to me but I assume the ATO makes an allowance for the part of the pension I paid in the first place? If that is so, I am wondering whether the same would apply to my police pension where I paid in 13% of my salary to fund it?

I am just about to receive my UK State Pension.

I can either have this paid into my existing UK bank for transfer at my will at the best available rate or I could have the pension paid directly into my Aussie account through City Bank WorldLink service.

I have been trying to establish what exchange rates WorldLink use and how much they differ from the actual bank rate on the day.

At the moment, I use Currency Fair to exchange my income as their rates tend to be .01 cent below the actual exchange rate. Is there anyone on this site that is using the WorldLink service who has compared the WorldLink rate to another FX such as Currency Fair or TransferWise? Is it worth transferring through WorldLink or to stick with my original plan?

I am told that WorldLink do charge a standing monthly fee of £2.74.

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/07/peter-dutton-says-like-minded-countries-should-rethink-un-refugee-convention
It’s also about other types of immigration 
quote:-
In a wide-ranging interview with Guardian Australia conducted on Tuesday, Dutton flagged a reluctance to allow the elderly family members of immigrants to come to Australia, and a desire to incentivise new arrivals to move to regional communities. He also reaffirmed the country’s commitment to a nondiscriminatory immigration policy
Quote 
“We need to bring in younger people like most western democracies. We want to bring them in as young as possible, which is sometimes controversial because people want to bring, particularly through the family program, people of an older age in. But we want people to pay taxes and be contributing for as long as possible.

What’s the average time that Centrelink takes to ring your sponsor as I’ve been waiting six weeks now, which seems an awful long time for them to collate the information given to them 

7 weeks, wow, that must have been frustrating.Mine was stuck at border control for 4 weeks which I thought was bad enough, but then it was over the Christmas holiday period (and as it’s school summer holidays everywhere will be short staffed so it was understandable).  Glad you also now have your things as well.  It certainly makes it all feel very like home again.  My granddaughter is delighting in helping me to sort out all my costume jewellery, general “bits” and, of course, the photos.

On the subject of form filling, is the form for letting HMRC know we are leaving a simple procedure? The form p85 is downloadable I believe. Is it straightforward dealing with the Revenue? What is required? 
People who have moved can perhaps relate their experiences. 

The following wording is copied from the email asking me to make the payment.  (My daughter got a bank cheque from her own bank in Australia.  If you get an international bank cheque, they say it takes 28 days to clear! ) I have no idea what a BCC file or an OSF file is but I did not receive a tax invoice, so the options were just bank cheque or credit card.  A bank cheque appears to mean the same as a banker's draft. Personal cheques are not accepted. 
 

PAYMENT OPTIONS - If your file is a BCC file you will receive a Tax Invoice.  If your file is an OSF file you will not receive a Tax Invoice.

TAX Invoice

If a tax invoice is attached the payment options are listed in the invoice. Payment may also be made directly to the Department of Immigration and Border Protection by credit card or bank cheque.

If we have not provide you with a TAX Invoice  

Payment must be made directly to the Department of Immigration and Border Protection by bank cheque or credit card:

Payment by Credit Card

If paying by credit card to the Department of Immigration and Border Protection, send the completed credit card form to the Parent Visa Centre.  Please contact your bank to arrange the release of the amount of the 2nd visa application charge and credit card surcharge, otherwise the payment may be declined. 

 

For details regarding surcharge fees please go to: https://www.border.gov.au/Trav/Visa/Fees

 

Payment by Bank Cheque

 

Bank cheques should be made payable to the Department of Immigration and Border Protection and sent by registered post to the following address:

 

Parent Visa Centre

Contributory Parent Section

Locked Bag 7

NORTHBRIDGE WA 6865

AUSTRALIA

 

Please note that we do not accept personal cheques.

 

IMPORTANT 

 

·         The file reference number must be included with the payment

·         Payment by international bank cheque will delay the visa grant for a period of 28 days afterpayment has been receipted to allow the cheque to clear. 

Transferwise charge 0.45% plus £1 for each transaction, so for £1,000 it would cost £5.50 (£4.50 in fees plus £1) and for £10,000 it would cost £46 (£45 in fees plus £1). But you get the full 'Mid Market' rate (fixed for 24 hours) and it's all very transparent easy to see exactly what everything is.
Basically if you google the exchange rate, then that's what you get with Transferwise. And because the rate is better than a no fee service, it sill works out favorably overall.
I think you do have to register online to get a quote, but this is free with no strings attached.
I personally dislike and distrust banks and believe they deliberately make their products confusing to maximise profits. So Transferwise is like a breath of fresh air, nothing hidden and very simple to use (and no sales calls or getting bombarded with emails).
I did once have to contact my uk bank before they released a payment, just to confirm it was genuine (which was reassuring).

He knows that it he offered to email. If they don’t bet picked up “on time” what would be the reason? Does it happen?

It’ll be interesting to see when it gets picked up. We are not using an agent but if ours doesn’t get picked up I’ve got one lined up! End June for us.
Keep us posted!

Can I ask how you all transfer money for your visits .  Have a bank account over there but trying to find a way that doesn't cost the earth. Don't want to bad mouth but had a bad experience with a currency firm. Apparently they couldn't verify my address  - even though I'd lived there for 33 years!!  The other problem is that as I wear two hearing aids I  find it very dfficult on the phone and trying to find a firm that is prepared to text me instead. 

Did they at least email you or was a lot of time wasted on snail mail? Would hope they at least use email. I set up a Gmail account for Mum who's the main applicant and taught her how to use it with great success recently. Dad's Gmail account on the other hand is still gathering dust...

[mention=238256]Kpnuts[/mention] Hi. If You havn’t been in Oz for a 12mths stay prior to police check request you only need the UK one then?  
Am guessing I will have been in Oz approx 9mths at that stage
Thanks , Kath

My parents have just joined the Contributory Parents visa hamster wheel with me as sponsor. The application was arrived at the Department on 21 September, and I've just received the acknowledgement letter and tax invoice for the first visa application charge. Even though it seems like we still have a long way to go, there was something satisfying about receiving the first piece of correspondence from the Department about the application on Saturday afternoon (clearly someone is working overtime due to the backlog).
I was expecting a laundry list of "what's next" in the Acknowledgement letter, but all it said was the application hasn't been assessed and that they'll be in touch to request for more information if needed.
We've decided to proactively send in Form 80 anyway in the hope that this will give them 1 less thing to request for and speed up the process a tad.
The good thing is that my parents aren't in a rush to get over here and fully anticipated the 36 months lead time. They live in Malaysia which makes visits to Australia easy and vice versa - we see other at least twice a year around Chinese New Year and/or Christmas and other family events or family holidays.
Best of luck to everyone in the queue for a Parents Visa.

Well that’s it! One day in Bali and the143 has been granted. I cannot say this has been the best experience with many soul searching and frustrating moments.

My only advice to those just starting out - if the current process remains the same, don’t anticipate your grant date. If I were to do this again, I wouldn’t have sold up in the UK. I wouldn’t have travelled to AU on a 600 visa in anticipation. Don’t preempt the Medicals or police checks, just wait until you are instructed by Immigration. After a wait of over two years I thought that by travelling to AU was a clever thing to do. In the end, I had to fork out for more UK police checks and also obtain AU police checks as we had built up a cumulative period of over 12 months. Even with a 12 month 600 visa I thought it was going to be a walk in the park, instead, we were only a couple of months away from having to leave AU for 6 months.

I reckon I have wasted a total of £10k instead of sitting tight at home.

Anyway, I will keep this site in view and hopefully assist others in a very long queue. Good luck.

Hi, just planning ahead and was interested to hear you paid the AOS bond, I thought our sponsor would have to do this with us transferring funds into her account. Did you have any problems doing it yourselves, it would be easier when sponsor is working.