nyorksgrannie

20 hours ago, Randall said:

You’ll need to have been here for four years on any kind of visa. One out of these four years should be as a permanent resident. 

If you’ve been here for four years and have been a permanent resident for more than one, then you can apply for citizenship. To be sure, all you have to do is try to lodge an application. The application page on immi website won’t let you proceed if you’re not eligible. 

Than you Randall, that’s good news looks like we can apply.

20 hours ago, ramot said:

Not sure in your case? But we were here on a long term temporary retirement visa for many years, and only had to wait for one year as PR before we could apply for citizenship. Likewise my daughter could apply for citizenship, 1 year after PR granted after living here waiting for on the onshore partner visa.  Hope someone can clarify for you. 

Thank you for responding Ramot, I know the rules changed just trying to work out when we can apply.

Can someone tell me whether the time a person is allowed to apply for Citizenship is 4 years from date of arriving or 4 years from residency being given? We are seniors and came here 8 months before our 143 was granted on a 12 month 600 visa.

On 25/11/2020 at 20:50, ramot said:

Sorry I have only just seen this. Im afraid I don’t know if you can apply earlier for citizenship. As you probably know the amount you receive from your state  pension will be frozen at that rate when you arrive to live in Australia, should you go to UK on holiday, it will be increased while you are there to the amount you should receive had you not left. On your return to Australia it reverts back to the original frozen amount!! 

Marisa has helped with your other questions. 

You will probably need good advice on your tax situation, when you move here, and Alan Collett who is a tax expert on both UK and Australian tax is recommended by posters. 

All the best.

ps. We kept our UK bank account and our pensions etc are paid into that, and we use transfer wise to transfer money we need to our Australian bank. It suits us, as pre covid we went to UK every year for 3 months as we have grandchildren there.. I afraid I don’t know if it’s the best to keep a UK account open  or not if you are never going to visit UK much? 

Thank you Ramot we are already living in Australia, we came out in 2017 and our 143 visa was issued in 2018, see below. We haven’t visited UK since  and I didn’t know the state pension went up when visiting, how strange  I thought you would have to be back permanently and prove it for that to happen. As we have no close relatives in the uk it is unlikely we would visit for long and we hope some  friends will visit us here post Covid. We have kept a UK bank account too and also do a transfer from that via Halo.

I will investigate Citizenship further, it’s tricky when the necessary documents on line are not available to view until you have reached the qualifying number of years to apply. We are so happy to be here.

Thank you for replying.

Thank you that is nice to know and I don’t have a problem with voting I have always voted , women suffered in the Uk protesting to get women the vote we should respect that.  

Many thanks for replying.

Congratulations Ramos I was just browsing looking for info on citizenship so wondered if you or anyone else might be able to help.

We only got our 143 parent visas in 2018 and we are in our early 70’s  I understand older people can apply earlier for citizenship but not sure if this is true. Also are there any downsides we should be aware of, would we still be able to draw our UK state pensions for instance? We have never worked in Australia and have a private pension too. Also are we able to have dual citizenship?  We have no intention of going back to UK to live but just wondered about passports ours have several years left.

I would be grateful for any info.

19 hours ago, SusieRoo said:

Thank you Marilyn. It’s very encouraging to hear how well things are going for you and how quickly your 173 to 143 was processed. Fingers crossed our application gets similar treatment.

These last 12 months have been an eventful to say the least. It started so well with having our new baby granddaughter here over Christmas, we sold our house (without advertising it) and packed up all our chattels. With 600 visas in hand, flights booked for two (plus two dogs). What could go wrong….

Never expected to be homeless at our age, especially in the middle of a pandemic. Very unsettling at the time, but we have been very lucky to have good friend and supportive family. We have even now bought a motorhome and although not living in it fulltime, we are planning on a long road trip though Germany, Switzerland and Italy (Covid permitting).

I’m not taking anything for granted now, but it will be good to have our PR in hand soon and hopefully making the move to Australia sometime in 2021.

Just checked in to see how everyone is doing and so pleased for you SusieRoo some progress at last, I hope you manage to travel in Europe - safely and hope you will soon be in Australia with family. 

On 13/02/2020 at 10:46, Pertenhall said:

Has anyone had a problem in applying for a credit card once you are in Australia?  We have been banking with Westpac for over 4 years and have just tried to get a credit card with them.  We were so used to using our credit card for monthly shopping in the UK, paying the balance off each month and would have liked to continue that way now that we are here in Australia.  We were very disappointed that Westpac didn’t even want to know what our income from our UK pensions was (I have a very good state pension and hubby has state pension plus military pension plus work based pension, all very good).  The reply we got was that we needed to have an Australian taxable income.  We confirmed with them that we are registered for tax in Australia and that all our UK pensions were liable to Australian tax.  Their reply “I have double checked this with our credit team today and they have confirmed that we cannot accept only UK Pensions as a sole income to support a credit card application. Our current policy will not allow it. We would need you to be drawing a Australian pension as well for the UK pensions to be able to be used.”  We will try other financial establishments but did just wonder if anyone else has come up against this problem.  We are fully retired so won’t be able to get an Australian work based pension and won’t be eligible for an Australian state pension for another 9 years and even then because of our income from UK pensions and assets this will probably be close to zero.

Have you tried American Express ?

On 04/02/2020 at 18:52, AMP said:

Hurrah!  Just been told to make arrangements to leave the country (specifically not via China!!) and my visa will then be granted. I paid the 2nd VAC on 28th January. It fits totally perfectly with my already planned visit to the UK for my stepdaughter’s wedding.  I really do feel so lucky and it will be brilliant to finally say that my official place of residence is Australia.

I can’t thank contributors to this forum enough for all the advice and support, practical and emotional, which they have given throughout this 4year plus process.  Thank you, thank you, thank you.   Good luck to all those who are still waiting.  It’s very much a case of playing the patience game and ultimately your time will also come round 

Many congratulations,  lots of celebrating when you get to uk and they issue your visa, very happy for you.

I guess you have found somewhere to live now but we like Saratoga and Davistown. We are retired but travel to see family in Berowra and Sydney area. Driving is fine until you get to Hornsby and south then it is busy and full of trucks.

The great thing about a Davistown is that there is plenty of space to walk by the water, it doesn’t get the weekend tourists that clog up Terrigal and Avoca and there is a ferry across to Woy Woy where you can catch a train into Sydney some of which are fast (ish) not stopping everywhere. We can walk to cafes, restaurants and takeaways.

There are hospitals in Gosford, shopping mall st Erina, 15 mins drive to Avoca when you want beach. etc etc. You might struggle with budget but there are still some bargains to be had if you don’t mind a bit of renovating.

Good luck with wherever you choose.

On 27/05/2019 at 12:40, Mani Baxi said:

Hi Everyone,

We applied for 143 visa in August 2015.

We are expecting my parents residency in the coming weeks.

My parents are here in Australia right now on a tourist visa and as per the rules once they are to the stage of processing the residency then my parents have o leave the country, my question is how long do they have to leave and do they have to go back to the home country or can we just send them some where close like Bali or NZ?

Many Thanks

Mani

Unless the rules have changed they just need to be out of Australia  we were asked to give our departure date and flight details and were given a date to leave before  (we went to Fiji) our residency was granted as soon as we were there but you should allow a few days, a week to be safe in my opinion before returning.

8 hours ago, jimbob007 said:

 

Congratulations Jimbob007, what a wait! we never realised at the time how lucky we were - 3 years

Good luck to everyone still waiting.

Many thanks Ramot, I am not sure if there is any relevance but Barclays closed a lot of their overseas branches, Sydney being one of them and they just have a  Corporate office now. Not sure why this would affect our UK account though but the impression we were given was that it would be a temporary arrangement to keep the account open, our state pensions are paid into there and I have used it to send gifts etc., but that also has become more difficult as companies want Uk billing address for card payment. I use Paypal when I can now, or just pay in Aus Dollars. 

I do find the pin sentry gadget useful though for accessing account details.

Many thanks for your help.

20 hours ago, JetBlast said:

What bank are you with? I was with Natwest & HSBC when I was last over in Aus and both didn't have any problems with it. I am going back over this year so would be keen to know if I expect any trouble from them.

18 hours ago, rammygirl said:

Sometimes the staff you ask are not aware that accounts can be kept. You need to persist. There is no reason you cannot keep an existing account within the new regulations. Of course an organisation can choose not to let you and some banks/building societies may do this. 

You cannot open a new account, even within the same bank though. 

Barclays

17 hours ago, rammygirl said:

Neither do I and I still have accounts with several UK banks, they send new cards to my Australian address. You should be able to keep an existing account you just cannot open a new one.  They will ask you to complete a declaration at some point giving them your ATO info as part of the new regulations. 

If you have online access look at the info you should be able to change an address to an overseas one, if not give them a call. Plenty of people stil have UK accounts decades after migrating and use their Australian address.  Who is the account with?

17 hours ago, rammygirl said:

Neither do I and I still have accounts with several UK banks, they send new cards to my Australian address. You should be able to keep an existing account you just cannot open a new one.  They will ask you to complete a declaration at some point giving them your ATO info as part of the new regulations. 

If you have online access look at the info you should be able to change an address to an overseas one, if not give them a call. Plenty of people stil have UK accounts decades after migrating and use their Australian address.  Who is the account with?

Many thanks rammygirl,  Jetblast & MarisaWright,

We assumed others with UK accounts gave a close relatives address, still in the UK. We don’t have any close relatives left there, just elderly cousins. We were originally told the bank wouldn’t send replacement debit cards overseas but did get them to do it after several requests.We have been with the bank in question a long time, with hindsight should have transferred to another whilst still in UK.

We will continue with our present system thanks to your help!  We love it here but so much still to learn!

29 minutes ago, rammygirl said:

Why will you need to close the UK bank account?

We no longer have a uk address 

Hi I hope some of those that used to contribute to this site that got visas earlier than us might still pop in and read updates from time to time , hopefully someone will know the answer.

We have up to now had our uk state pensions paid into a uk bank account and then transferred to a currency transfer company who arrange the payment into our Aus bank account,  if we close the uk bank account which we will need to do, does the pension office transfer through a bank with higher transfer fees to us? 

On 19/02/2019 at 22:45, surfersj said:

Can anyone who had an offshore CPV 143 visa application and private medicals carried out in the UK who has had their visa granted - and therefore passed their medicals - please indicate what feedback they received to that effect and also, how long they waited to hear something?   I would ask this question also of anyone who encountered any health issues that were communicated back from immigration.   We had our medicals done on 15th January and thereafter transmitted to immigration electronically by the health clinic.   We both have existing health conditions which I don't believe to be serious and detrimental to our application, but we are anxious to know how long we can expect to wait to hear something back, good bad or indifferent!   Is this process as long and drawn out as the Assurance of Support Bond process or should we hear something back fairly soon?

Try posting on Parent visa forum, we did our health checks in Australia, we got the impression from the Doctors there that there was no concern over our medicals but I don’t think we had a letter saying that, things change so hopefully someone on the forum can help you that has gone through this process more recently.

Re SuzanneW - listing holidays

When we were at this stage I found it useful to check photographs to prompt my memory, we had most on computer  and some records of flights etc on a filed travel itinerary, also look at any stamps in your passport. It is time consuming putting all the dates in but better to do it than have questions later.

Good luck

Hi Catlady you are very lucky, we have found Bulk billing practices thin on the ground and people having to wait a long time to see the Drs. The Drs we used to go to near our daughters however did sometimes bulk bill at their discretion when it was a short follow up appointment for instance and we too have found the Drs good here and X rays etc done amazingly quickly at PRP. We are about to start at a new Drs practise having moved into our renovated house and  I understand some of the Drs there only bill privately so will have to choose carefully as it is a fairly small practise, we are not in a city.  I hope you are enjoying life in Queensland.

11 hours ago, LindaH27 said:

is it not possible to pay for extra options and add dental  cover as I thought you could - also for ambulance etc? 

Yes it is and we pay extra for dental .

Re health insurance in Aus, it doesn’t cover everything like in Uk most Drs/surgeons charge more than the health insurance allowance and you pay the balance. I recently had a fall and the specialist I was referred to was based at a private hospital, Medicare paid for some of the  medical fees but I had to pay the surgeon days in advance of surgery (which was minor but still cost a lot) and then reclaim from medicare who only pay part of the amount charged. Bupa paid the hospital fees but not the surgeon, anaesthetist etc. This would explain why private insurance costs less than the Uk but all Australians are encouraged and expected to have it and are penalised when they don’t. Medicare doesn’t cover dental, Bupa who we are with and pay extra for dental,  pay a fraction of total cost, for example I chipped a tooth, it didn’t need any anaesthesia ,was a quick job ,the fee was Aus$ 325.00 Bupa paid $80.20 I paid the rest.

The service is usually good but you should be prepared for the costs involved as most on this site may well be fit, but are not young.

On 26/09/2018 at 20:45, Pertenhall said:

42 months, 2 weeks and 1 day later AND WE HAVE OUR VISAs.  Can hardly believe it.  Now we just need to sell the house.

Just seen your posting, great news after all this time, congratulations, I hope you will be very happy in your new home when you have sold and packed up. It is hard work organising it all but so worth it when you get here, being with your family and the weather helps too!

On 12/09/2018 at 18:11, Pertenhall said:

Joy of joys - we have been asked to pay 2nd VAC!!!!

Just seen your good news, at last!  many congratulations and good luck with the house sale etc.

23 hours ago, Juliet7 said:

Oh for another referendum now we all know the difficulties involved!

 I would try not to worry about it too much, all the scaremongering and politicians/bankers with their own agenda cause the lack in confidence, once the deal is done they will have to get on with it. Great Britain was and still is Great and is not going to collapse over Brexit. I think houses prices will rise when confidence returns after Brexit.

Good luck to everyone in the queue I guess we are lucky that we got our visas in three years, we didn’t think so when we were in the queue though as we thought it would be two years, at least now people have a more realistic idea of the wait involved.