gafuk

Catlady, Sorry to bother you but looking at your lodgement details you lodged 2 months before me, you had meds and police checks in Feb this year etc etc. I have not had any communication from our agent or Immy?.  We can't get them done without authority ?. 

Do you have agent?, if so I presume Immy contact you via them and not direct,

Just trying to work out the small difference in our dates of lodgement and the vast difference in progression?

Thanks for the info all,

Thanks catlady for the information, a little less to worry about, its dragging on so long now just hope nothing goes wrong or falls off before our number does come out, regarding moving in with relatives, it is possible but they are 20 miles away from our workplaces and its a load of hassle if you fall out.

Your sister seems obliging does she live near Merseyside ?

1 minute ago, Catlady2014 said:

Height, weight, blood pressure, urine test, blood test for HIV, chest x-ray, eye test, discussion of any conditions and current medications revealed by answers to prior questions, examine for skin cancers and signs of  drug misuse, touch toes, squat - nothing too terrible.  

Ok thanks I will get into training from tomorrow .... ,should be ok on half of that lot but how low do you have to squat ?

While I am on, has anyone recently had their medical carried out, I am interested in what they do or have you do

( besides the mass of history questions I am anticipating )

Any physical test ( I am overweight but pretty fit, my wifes bmi bang on but shes just pretty not fit )

Any mental agility tests ? not too worried about that but I'll swat up on what day it is before I go in

20 minutes ago, bry45 said:

Sorry to say Gafuk, unfortunately, your absolutely right, 

We've all been banging on about it since the news broke

Are they talking about completed applications or is that when they start assessing the application?

We applied 14th December 2014 so were literally putting our house up for sale this weekend assuming our 34 months were almost up and were looking forward to our AOS email at least. Timing critical for us as don't want to be forced out of our home until needed but some of our funds for the visa is trapped in the house .

.

Hi all, just stumbled on this bit of info L dated 14/06/17

waiting time  for cpv 143 = 75% now 35 months.   90 % now 39 months !

( hope I have this wrong ! )

1 hour ago, Catlady2014 said:

£542  + $498 to be paid in Australia for clearance etc.  This is door to door and includes starter pack of boxes, tape, marker pens etc. 

Hi Catlady,

 Can you tell me how big the movecube is please as pickfords loosely quoted me around £2000 to £3000 pounds ?

How did you get a quote off the movers ?

Hope your move goes well

21 hours ago, Dolphin1962 said:

Hang in there folks.

We have been here 18 months now and nothing beats being able to have the grandkids over for a sleepover! 

All the stress and anxiety is def worth it in the end

That's a good enough incentive , lovely pic'

On 28/05/2017 at 07:28, rogeliz said:

Reading through the threads, we thought some of you might be interested in our experiences. We have now been in Australia as permanent residents with a 143 visa for a little over 2 years. We initially used a migration agent based in Perth, having met their representative in London the previous year. We sent the forms to them in January 2013 but they took what seemed to us to be an excessive amount of time checking our forms. Finally after many prompts by us, they said the forms had now all been changed by Immigration and would have to be re-done. However they offered to do this for us on our behalf, and just use the signature page we had submitted. They then told us the forms had been sent to the Parent Visa Section in July 2013.

 

Meanwhile we put the house on the market. In December 2013, we had a concrete offer which we accepted. You can imagine how we felt when we learnt only a few days later on the internet that the Migration Agent we had used had gone bankrupt. We immediately sent off an email and got a reply from the liquidators confirming the bankruptcy and furthermore stating there was no record of our application ever having been lodged. What a Christmas present! We phoned Immigration in London and they were also unable to find any application and stated we would have to start over again!

 

We decided not to lose the sale of the house, so moved into rented accommodation in January 2014. We completed all the new forms, and sent them by courier. No Agent this time, in January 2014. We didn’t want to stay in the UK rental for another 2 years while the new application went through so we applied for and got a 600 Visa allowing us to visit Australia for a maximum of 12 months in any 18, for a period of 3 years. We also took a very big gamble and applied for permission (as foreigners) to buy a house in Australia. We were told it had to be new or off plan, we could not buy anything ‘second hand’. We paid the deposit on an off-plan house which was going to be ready about November 2014. Unfortunately we could not ship any furniture, on a 600 Visa, so everything went into storage in the UK.

 

We travelled to Australia on the 600 visa in October 2014 with a view to having to ‘come and go’ until the 143 was granted. With a 600 for 3 years, we had a fair amount of leeway. We moved into the house at the beginning of November 2014. Incidentally, we sent 3 large suitcases by ship containing clothes, shoes, sports items but they took 3 months to arrive so if you are reading this, we suggest you use air freight as it is quicker.

 

About a month later, at the suggestion of the family in Australia, we phoned up Immigration to see if they could give us an update on the new application we had sent in January 2014. Imagine our horror again when we were told they had no record of an application from us Somewhat distraught at this, we contacted the family and our son, our sponsor, he told us he had just the very same day received an email from Immigration asking him to make the sponsorship payment etc for our application which was nearing completion!!

 

Wondering now what on earth was going on, it turned out that the Migration Agent HAD in fact sent off the application but when copying out our details on the new forms, had inadvertently put our email address --.com instead of --.co.uk , an address that happened to exist!  So, all the Immigration information that should have come to us had gone astray.  All this now meant we had 2 weeks to get the Health Checks done (which we did in Australia) and the UK Police Checks which we did via a courier. Just before Christmas 2014 we had confirmation that we would be given the visas once we had left Australia and they would be issued on our return. So in January 2015 we left the warmth of NSW for the freezing cold & snow of the UK to ship the stored possessions.

 

Our visa was confirmed when we came back in February 2015 and we have been here enjoying Australia ever since.

 

In conclusion, yes it was extremely stressful at the time but we don’t regret it. However we would not recommend using an Agent as all the forms are easily downloaded and if you are a native English speaker they are not difficult, just tedious to fill them all in.

Wow, rogeliz,  a bumpy road for you and so glad it worked out. I think I'm a little more nervous now !

Good luck with the rest of your adventure, hope the stress is all behind you .

10 hours ago, Catlady2014 said:

My question about an agent was meant to be directed to Nanajan in connection with communicating direct with Immi.  I agree though that sometimes agents don't seem to know any more than we do.  

Sorry, I didn't mean to butt into your conversation ( I have got friends, honest ! ) 

19 hours ago, Catlady2014 said:

Have you got an agent?  Or doing it yourselves?

We have an agent but they have as much information as the rest of us and to be honest less it seems sometimes. Forums like pio are the best source and I really appreciate the information people post.  

Hi All,

  As we applied in Dec 2014 our projected 34 months is due October ( yeahhh) as per the immi site.

Is that projection a start date or completed by date , anyone know ?

we have heard nothing from anyone about AOS , medicals etc so looking at the dates with a squint if its going to be completed by then as its still showing a now processing date of 3rd October ...

8 hours ago, AJ_143 said:

Hello all,

I have a question, if anyone knows the answer? I applied for 143 on 15th Sep, 2014. I think I got CO assigned as I was asked to provide police clearance and form 80 within 28 days (by 21st April). I have submitted all documents now. I have not heard anything after that.

Would you know how much time it takes after that? When can I expect to be asked to provide money? (So that i can arrange funds)? thanks in advance

cheers

 

Hi, Timing is critical for me and when I asked my agent they said that once Case officer is appointed I would have 28 days to complete my Meds and Police check and send them back. Then Immy will respond within 28 days requesting the second vac payment and I have 28 days to pay up ! Sweating now its all getting close for us and just praying house sells and goes through not tooo soon and not too late

Exciting time for Catlady and we lodged 10 weeks after you so hopefully won't be more than a few months for us? fingers crossed.

For those who have only recently lodged, imagine if Australia and Uk included freedom of movement between our two nations and did away with the Visa's !.

(With my luck that is a real possibility.)

It would nice wouldn't it ?

I wouldn't mind for you all , I just want to be there, get a job and see our kids weekly or monthly instead of yearly.

I have only recently got more involved in the forum and its been a nice experience, thanks everyone

43 minutes ago, 8CPA said:

I wrote to Immi to ask for my HAP id on the off chance they would oblige. This was 9 months before we got our Case Officer. I thought they would not reply but about 3 weeks later I got an email with my Hap id and instructions. I used the email given at the end of the update email. We got our medicals and police checks done but only just made it in time  before the year was up. Might be worth waiting a little bit longer as we were sweating bricks at the end.

 

Thanks for the information

27 minutes ago, Catlady2014 said:

Hi gafuk, you can't get your medical done until you receive the HAP id from Immi.  At present, they are issuing HAP id and asking for medicals and Police certs to be done two or three months before you get to CO stage.  However, you can get your Police cert done at any time without a HAP id, but just bear in mind that medicals and Police reports are only valid for one year anyway, and then you have the get them all over again.  I would hope you aren't over a year away from CO stage .... but ...  the processing is getting longer and longerrrrrrrrr ... 

Thanks Catlady2014, I was under the impression you could get your meds done and they were valid for 12 months but I won't jump the gun. Must remain patient!

Hi Everyone,

                  I have read in the forum that some people had their medicals done in Edinburgh with doctors who know the best way to present the case and can be helpful with their knowledge.   As we lodged our 143 application in Dec 2014 and we calculate ( as best we can with the information available) that we should be assigned a CO in Sept / Oct this year. We are planning to get our meds done soon in preperation. Do think this is a good idea and can anyone give me the details of the Doctors please?. Just realising how much of the UK we have not seen and a few days in Edinburgh would be a tick off the list.

Thanks for the info on currency transfer, I have spoken to torfx today and They say I can transfer funds, even smaller amounts, with no charge to my Aus bank account. I have to sign on and look into it further. ( you know what they say about if it's too good to be true) to be fair they have been very good with other information and transactions. 

Thanks spoolboy67.

                           looking at your dates, are you all done and dusted now or still waiting for the 143?

We lodged in Dec 2014 and trying to judge when we might get our email?.

Hi Clarkesville and AMP, sorry for jumping in on your convo but my bank ( santander) want to charge me £25 for a transfer to an Aus account!. Is there a low cost option? as I would love to send a few pounds here and there into our account to build it up a little. We are with ANZ in Australia.

Thanks Quoll.

 At least if you know what you are up against you can prepare yourself.

I have a small network of friends and there have been suggestions they might be in a position to help.

I will remain positive but realiastic.

Thanks again.

Hi NanaJan

 A post on facebook from immi said the system was struggling with the requests.

Won't be long now !

Hi Kimbslice

I posted a link to a page on the immy site giving expected time frames for the various visas.

Should help

message me if you cant find it.

I posted this link on the site yesterday but it doesn't seem to show on this thread. I don't know if anyone else has already posted it so sorry if it's duplicated. The link shows a table of times of processing for the various visas. The 143 is shown as 32-34 months. Anyway maybe it'll be of interest and help to someone.

http://www.border.gov.au/about/access-accountability/service-standards/global-visa-citizenship-processing-times

It's great to have people in the same boat and to share in your stories and advice. Thanks