Martinbjulieb

I am also interested in any replies to this topic. We have looked into it but can never get a straight answer!

We also used Dogtainers and agree they were excellent.

Hi there, we paid just under $3k for our Bedlington Terrier, it was 2017 but I wouldn’t have thought it would increase that much. Perth to UK with Dogtainers.

If you are flying into Manchester and need a dog friendly overnight stay I can recommend The Britannia Country House Hotel about 5 minutes from the airport

We used Dogtainers who were excellent.

We just used the paperwork we got with our removals quote, so it was a very generalised list. I can’t remember if the TOR asks for specifics but if it does you can expand on any details on there.

Yes, that’s right, just one form it is for the shipment not the person. We did two and then I was panicking because we only got one reference number.

We are enjoying being home and especially enjoying the weather!! My husband has said that the construction industry has changed massively in the 10 years we have been away though and is not settled properly at work yet. We are loving the countryside walks and stately homes etc and the scenery in general. Kids are going skiing with school in February and one of the is going to LA in October!!

Do you have to say they are work tools? We bought all sorts of tools back with us no problem. Angle grinders, drop saw, circular saw, drills etc, grass edging machine and a lawn mower as well as your usual small tools. We just added them as “tools from contents of garage”.

We moved back in March 2017, our kids were 14 and 12 that June so they had just literally started years 9 and 7 in Australia. We have kept our son (14 year old) back a year in school as he would have missed too much of year 9 when we arrived with the school year finishing in July here. He has now started year 10 this September after having caught up in year 9. There are still things that he hasn’t learnt in the curriculum but our school is great in helping with that. Our daughter didn’t need to be kept back as year 7 is considered to be a transitional year so there were no problems. Consequently they are now only one school year apart! If you are enrolling in an Academy they have the final say on keeping kids back a year. If it is a normal school then you have to go through the council and request this when you enrol at a school. They will ask for all sorts of information so having any school reports or information from current teachers will be helpful. Good luck, it can be done but don’t delay too much!

Never found one that tasted right I have to say.

We found Perth to be not very dog friendly. There is one “dog cafe” that we went to a few times with our dog. You have to be careful walking in the bush etc at particular times of the year too because of snakes etc. We have found the U.K. to be much more welcoming to dogs since we have been back, she goes most places with us with no problems.

We kept our Royal Bank of Scotland one open for 10 years whilst we were in Perth.... they even left a £6k overdraft on it that we had as a fallback during our house sale in 2007!! Family used to pay money in for birthdays, Christmas etc and we would leave it there and use the equivalent amount in dollars to buy something. Then whenever we came back on holiday we had some spending money.

Did you not keep a U.K. bank account open? We used mortgage statements from Aus as well as our statements from our Super (we are in our 50’s) so wanted to be able to show we would have the means to pay a mortgage off early. Be prepared to show how you have obtained any cash that you bring over - from a house sale for example as they are very hot on anti money laundering!! Luckily we had all the info available on email from our settlement agents so make sure you keep stuff like that. I would definitely check around. Good luck.

We have used our Doctors with no problems. I gave our old U.K. doctors details and they sent for our records. Anything from Australia is basically lost though. I have the children’s immunisation records from Australia though and they have used those to update their “red books” . I have a hospital appointment shortly and for that I had to prove I wasn’t an overseas visitor by providing my passport, proof of address, work contract and mortgage evidence. However you can use rental agreements and if you are not employed you would be able to use benefit statements etc. Note though this is purely for an appointment with a specialist NOT a GP.

Ours was about $8k and that included making a crate and shipping a motorbike in the container. Get a quote for insurance through Letton Percival (often mentioned on here) they were great.

We moved from Perth last year and used Chess, they were fantastic. Shipment took about 5 weeks and we had an option to delay for a week at the Perth end if we wanted to but we didn’t. I would hazard a guess that it would cheaper to store here than Perth. Plus once it’s here that’s a job over with and you will have stuff ready when you want it. We stored here and Chess partner with Britannia at this end so you could always check prices directly with them. Good luck, any questions just ask.

You can’t change your address on a UK licence anyway if you are not living in the U.K. so just do a change of address when you come back. We found the Post Office very helpful with which form to use etc.

We left in March last year and did our tax return at H & R Block before we left. They lodged it at the ATO but we didn’t get our refund until after the end of the tax year as normal. Make an appointment for a few days before you leave and then you can get it all sorted.

Agreed. We have it in writing from our super fund and our broker!

Check with your provider first. Ours are valid even though we are living permanently overseas. So long as they are paid via a Australian bank or super fund. Our insurances are excellent so we pay the amount through our super annually and then make a one off payment to our super from the U.K. again via our Australian bank account to cover it.

We did too! Just saying what you’re SUPPOSED to do! ??

Great news. We did our AEC online and you get a confirmation email. Obviously do a final tax return. I emailed Medicare but didn’t get a reply. You are also supposed to hand your drivers licence in if you are getting a U.K. one as you’re not supposed to have both. Wait until you have your UK ones and then send them back. If you’ve got any gap saver on your private medical go to town on that, we all got new glasses, physio appointments for two of us and final dental check ups? and we still had some left! Good luck.

We booked direct with Emirates. Thing they have good deals on at the minute. Cost us $4k for 4 of us that was last year though.

We have just bought a house and it was 8 weeks. We were told to expect 8-12 weeks but we were lucky as there was no upward chain.