Beachcomber4

Thankyou for all your advice

Thankyou for your responses. I see the non contributory visa is still on the list of visa prices from July 2017, would they have that on there if they were considering withdrawing it? We have discussed the contributory visa, however due to their ages I believe they would rather save the money to pass onto their grand children later on than spend it on a visa they may not get decades of use out of. I've noted your comments about maybe not being able to leave the country on a bridging visa. This would not be ideal as they would still want to holiday abroad and travel back to see family whilst they still can. I've had a look on the parents thread but it's crazy long with thousands of posts to try and read through it all blurs into one! Lol It's a difficult one, I guess it's a case of trying to get further advice from another Mara reg agent and see what they say.

Hi Looking for some info as getting rather conflicting advice from agents here and in Oz. My husband and I are heading out to Oz from the UK in the next couple of months on a 189 perm res visa. My husbands sister and family are Australian Citizens and have been out there 10 years. My parents in law now wish to move to Oz too and are looking at the best option for them. Once we are over there they will meet the family balance requirement with two children over in Oz and one here in uk. They are both in their 70's very healthy and active and have just had a house built in Oz. They were considering applying for the non contributory visa (30 year wait one) and wondered if there is any way they can stay in Oz on a long term basis whilst this is going through? They usually go out on a tourist visa spending a few months in Oz then coming back to the uk but don't wish to keep doing this once we are out there. I know due to their age they are unlikely to be around when the 30 year wait is over and we are also aware of the new 5yr (10yr) visa but again don't think this is suitable for them as they may not be able to travel back to uk in 10 years due to their age. Grateful for any advice

Sorry for the slow reply We used John Adams at immigration2oz.com, they were really good and thorough

I forgot to mention my husband was being assessed for an engineering profession and didn't need to do any interviews/practicals, so that may have made it quicker than others.

It took 11 weeks for my husband to get his positive assesment from Vetassess

We were also granted our 189 perm visas today :smile: hope everyone else hears soon too! X

Hi Monkey1980 and javadxster. Just wondered if you were both located in UK? That's a long time to wait for you guys. Weird why some people get their grant within a month, others 3 and some others longer, if they are straightforward cases. Can I ask how you found out where your case officer is located? Thanks

Thanks for that. Your timeline is very similar to ours. Our police checks and medicals were uploaded on the 22/09/16 so hopefully not too long now! X :smile:

Congratulations!!! How exciting. We are still waiting to hear on ours. Can I ask how many were included in your application? There's 3 of us (me, my partner and our 14 year old daughter) and I wondered whether this could be slowing our application down. Hoping we hear soon, even though its only been just over a month we are getting impatient lol :smile:

Hi JetBlast Sorry I can't be of any help regarding PTE tutors, I just wanted to say I know how frustrating it is to be only a few marks away on one section on PTE. It took my husband 4 attempts to pass superior. 3x he took the test in London and it was always the speaking part letting him down (he is native English with a clear London accent) one occasion he only scored 58, though all other sections scored highly. He was so dejected about it all. We decided in the end to try a different test centre and he went to the one in Brighton, he didn't think he had done too well but said the Brighton test centre was less busy so he could concentrate better. Anyway next morning we found he had passed, 4th time, and with a high speaking score (go figure!??). I have a feeling PTE want to get as much money out of you as they can, though I believe the Ielts are no better. It's so frustrating!!! Hopefully you will pass next time round. I have my fingers crossed for you :smile:

Congrats @Marley24. Must be a wonderful feeling! Purplesparkle we are looking to move to Perth as we have family out there. Anyone else Perth bound?

Hiya, No news for us yet. Emailed the agent today but they said no response has been received yet, and that things had slowed down with the immigration department on a lot of applications. We are getting very impatient too, even though it's only been a few weeks! Hope we all hear something soon! :smile:

Hi Purplesparkle Our agent uploaded our medicals and police checks two weeks ago and we too are just waiting to hear now. Hoping our 189 grant comes soon, we have everything crossed! Definately exciting times, though nervous too! Hope you hear soon X

Hi Purplesparkle We are using an agent and they have uploaded all the documents etc on our behalf so can't really comment on the documents as we just gave the agent everything they asked for at the beginning. However we got advised by our agent on Tuesday that our Medicals have been finalised and uploaded to the Immigration dept, police checks have been uploaded too, so it's just a waiting game now. Wonder how long we will have to wait? Sitting here with our fingers and toes crossed that we get a grant. Hope yours goes ok

We are using immigration2oz too and have found John and his team to be excellent too. We started the process for a 189 visa middle of March and are now just waiting on the result of our medicals, then hopefully all being well, a grant. Good luck in your application!

We are using immigration2oz.com. John and Tiffany there have been excellent, would highly recommend them. Whoever you go with make sure they are Mara registered!

Haha don't get me started on the dreaded English test!

Sorry lots of typos and bad grammar, It is late

Hi Johnstanhope I don't mind telling you what we went through today, I was trying to find info before we went, as I think most people worry about what they may be in for! I do however think it all depends on where you go as to what they 'do' to you! Lol When we arrived we were each taken (separately) to the toilet to wee in a tub that had our details on. Once that was done I was taken in to see the doctor. Partner and doctor into see another doctor. She asked if I had ever been hospitalised for anything and whether I took any medication etc. I am asthmatic but only mildly, but she wasn't bothered about this. She then checked my eyes by shining a light in to them, got me to follow her finger and read a line of text on the light board. She then looked in my ears and throat. Next she checked my balance by asking me to put my arms out close my eyes and then touch my nose and walking in a line one foot in front of the other etc (like a drunk test lol) next she weighed me and took hight measurement. Asked me to strip down to bra and pants, took blood pressure, listened to chest, checked pulse, checked glands in neck and armpits. Asked me to lie down, checked reflexes and felt my tummy and moved my legs/hips about. Asked me to then stand up and touch my toes. That was pretty much it with doctor. Urine was checked in this time, mine was all fine, but my partners showed sugar so he had to retest a bit later but was fine second time round. They look for blood/sugar/protein in urine as could be sign of kidney problems or infection. My other half laughed when I told him what I had done as he didn't have to do half as much. Don't know why maybe they are more thorough with females!?! Next we we had blood taken (only those over 15) I believe they are mainly checking for HIV, then we had chest X-rays done. We were all in, checked and out in 1 hour 20 mins! Good luck with your application

Hi Purplesparkle We put our 189 application in end of August and a case officer was assigned just over a week later. We are doing things through an agent so the case officer got in touch with them. We were told to then book our medicals and do our police checks and provide proof of the booking/check being made back to agent so they could forward this on to the case officer within 28 days. We did this and are still awaiting the results of our police checks. It's been 10 days today so hopefully we will hear soon! We attended our medicals today. All 3 of us (me, my partner and our daughter of 14) were pretty nervous, but it wasn't as bad as I had thought. Bit embarrassing having to strip down to my bra and kecks whilst she got me to bend over and touch my toes but the doctors at the hospital we went to (Spire Hartswood in Essex) were all really nice. Fingers crossed all comes back ok. Hope you hear from your case officer soon!

Hi JetBlast my OH did the mock tests from the gold level PTE practice. He thinks they have been good as extra practice. Both times his speaking was 90, so that's odd seen as he got such a low score on the actual test in Wimbledon. His other scores have improved too. You get your results straight away, exactly the same score breakdown as what you get when you take the real test. Good luck for when you do your re-take

@JetBlast my OH did the mock tests from the gold level PTE practice. He thinks they have been good as extra practice. Both times his speaking was 90 so that's odd seen as he got such a low score on the actual test in Wimbledon. His other scores have improved too, just have everything crossed that he passes it this time round.

Will do JetBlast. He won't be doing them till the weekend though. Have you booked another test to do? What test centre did you use?

Thank you for all your replies My OH already has the Pearson PTE book that comes with a CD. He did find the graphs quite tricky and said the ones he got in the test were a lot more complicated than the ones shown in the book. He has just purchased the gold level mock tests on the Pearson website to try and help him further. Hopefully he will get there eventually!