CharlieV

Thanks PatW, the meet up sounds great! We lived in Godalming, Surrey but my parents moved here to Oz about 8 years ago and since then we'd been on lots of holidays to visit them then decided to make the move ourselves! So far so good!

Hi Ozzieb! We moved to North Lakes in October last year - myself, my husband and our 3 1/2 yr old son. We live pretty close to Bounty Boulevard School and would love a play date! Our son goes to kindy three days a week and my husband does shift work but just let me know when you're free and hopefully we can work something out!

Hi - looking for some opinions please. We're moving to the North Lakes/Mango Hill area within the next month or so. We've had a couple of house viewings and initially the area seems nice, although we may probably only be there for 6 month/a year to use it as a base to explore the surrounding areas and then buy a house in our preferred location. We're looking for a 3 or 4 bedroom house and I think one on some type of estate with a shared pool may be a good option and help us meet people and make friends. We also have a 2 1/2 year old son who will need to go to daycare/pre-school everyday so something close to those types of facilities would be great. Does anyone have any recommendations for specific areas that you think might work well for what we're looking for? We have viewings this weekend in Copeland Drive and Bass Court (both on complexes with shared pool/gym), would those be recommended? Thanks!

Hi everyone - we're emigrating in mid-September. Our plan is to initially just send over a few thousand pounds to tide us over until we are settling into new jobs and keep the bulk of our savings in the UK while we wait and see what the interest rates do. My question is, if we are in Oz for 6 or 12 months and then transfer over our savings would we be liable to pay tax on it in Australia? Thanks for any advice!

My parents moved to Hervey Bay after living in London for 50 years and they love it! Agree it is a great place for older people but for us or any young family it's really just a nice holiday location - a few nice parks, a small water park, some nice restaurants/cafés and of course great beaches and good for getting over to Fraser Island but other than that not too much going on. We've visited about five times in the last 7 years and love it as a holiday but would get a bit bored living there

I would 100% recommend using an agent. I applied (and have been granted) a 190 visa as a Health Information Manager for the state of SA. I used an agent called Sort Out My Visa - they are based in the UK. Although in theory the application is a straight forward process there are some parts that are confusing and without our agent I'm sure we would of made a mistake along the lines somewhere which may have resulted in the visa being rejected or additional costs. Due to my age and losing points we didn't have any time for errors so felt that an agent was well worth the extra spend. Good luck!

We managed to get them down a bit, so close to £2k plus delivery within 100 miles of destination. They were great, packed everything up, labelled it all by room and at the other end they unpack it into each room too. Only additional thing was insurance at 3% but you can always shop around for that part of it

It was around £2k for half a container

Just as an update - Anglo Pacific have been here all day packing and loaded our things onto the truck. They were great; worked non-stop, got it all done in 6 hours, wrote a really detailed list of items/boxes as they went and wrapped everything really well with individual labels on each item. Couldn't have hoped for better, lets just hope the rest of the process goes as smoothly as today did!

Hi All, I've been getting quotes for our shipping over the phone from a few companies and today we had the first ones, Pickfords, come over to look at the stuff and provide a quote. The guy that came over entered the number of boxes etc into his iPad said, that's it I'm done, it will be sent over in an email tomorrow. Any questions? I had to quiz him about insurance, if packing materials will be supplied, if they write the inventory or I need to. He didn't know how busy they are so wasn't sure when I would be able to book. He was unsure about a lot of things and just seemed to not care all that much which didn't inspire much confidence! So, I have a similar quote from Anglo Pacific (just over £2k for half a container) and they seem much more knowledgeable. Anyone else had a good experience with Anglo Pacific and does around £2k seem about right for half a container? Thanks!

Congrats Melbourne!! Very pleased for you, hope you have a weekend of celebrations planned!

Thank you! I'm sure you won't have too much longer to wait. Good luck!

Good news just received - VISA GRANTED!!! Now it all seems very real all of a sudden! Best of luck to everyone else still waiting x

Visas for 2 adults and one child plus medicals, agent fees, new passports, IELTS etc = £6k Shipping costs = £2k Flights = £2k No initial rental costs when we arrive as staying with friends and I already have a job so hopefully we won't need to use our savings. We'll be selling our two cars here and buying one is Oz so hopefully no additional spending required there either

No 1st of July email for me :-( This part of the waiting game in almost worse than the months since we submitted.... Anyone else hear anything?

That's useful info, thanks Bungo! Agree that their preference will be for me to be a contractor - I've never done that before so a bit of fear of the unknown!

Thanks, yes, figured it is one or the other. I guess my question was more about which would be the preferred route to go down based on others experience - I guess my biggest concern with invoicing every month is the accounting/tax side of things that would be up to me to manage. And other things, like would I invoice in AUD or GBP for example? And then would that be paid into a UK or Oz bank account and depending on that who pays the transfer fees? Think I need to find a good accountant!

We put our house on the market and sold within a week. No chain so it all went along fairly smoothly but there are always going to be some bumps along the way which you can never account for at the beginning of the process. We are now in rented - visa should be here within the next couple of weeks then we can hand in our notice on the house, pack up and go. Fingers crossed it will all work out ok

Hi All, we're planning to move over to Oz later this summer on a PR 190 visa. I've been offered a role with a small UK company, working from Oz - I'll be the only employee based outside of the UK. My question is - how should I go about getting paid? Would it be best to set myself up as a Sole Trader in Oz and then invoice this company once a month - that way, declare my income in Oz and pay tax that way. I'm hesitant to get them to set up a separate payroll just for me.... Any good accountant recommendations would be appreciated! Thank you

We took our two year old for his medical earlier this year and it was great - very quick, straightforward and the nurses made a fuss of him. The hardest part was having him sit still for a photo! After that they checked his height and weight and then we went in for a chat with the doctor about his general health then stripped down to his nappy for a check; mainly just visual but also his knee and hip joints. Also checked his eyes and ears. No wee sample required, thank goodness!

Finally here, the week of 1st July!! Fingers crossed we are hear good news soon

I was in exactly the same boat - a degree in a subject which has very little relevance to my career and work experience. Due to my work experience (around 8 years) in my chosen occupation (Health Information Manager) for the 190 visa application I received a positive assessment from Vetassess. I made sure that the I got as much 'proof' as possible to show that my experience matches my occupation - reference from my boss, one from a colleague, one from HR, copy of my job description, contract, copies of yearly appraisals etc etc. Good luck!

Hi All - so, my agent attended a meeting on Friday to get an update on visa progress and to learn if any further visas would be granted before 1st July. Feedback is as we all predicted; 190's have reached the quota so lodged applications will not be processed until 1st July. On the positive side, it's only 4 weeks away!

Not sure about mine...we're using an agent so I don't log onto the system at all. Sorry that wasn't much help!

Thanks for sharing Melbourne. At least now we all know for certain, July it is. Only 5 weeks away and lots to organise and keep busy with in the meantime!