Zippy

Never had a residence certificate in the Philippines, I didn't even know I needed one! I was on a business/travel visa which the immigration official would come to our hotel to collect my passport every 3 or 6 months, he never mentioned anything else required. I'll work on getting some affidavits done, would the hotel manager who was our boss at the time in the Philippines count as a "disinterested party" he's back in the states now. Does the affidavit need to signed by a solicitor or anything or is it just a signed statement by the person who wrote it. Very grateful for your help,

Hi Guys, We got assigned a CO a few weeks back for our 190 visa, was asked for Medicals, PCC and relationship evidence. We got married in May and have been asked to supply evidence of our relationship going back at least 12 months before this date. I've uploaded a statement from us as a couple explaining our relationship over the past 5 years, a statement from my family and my wifes family. E-mails between us going back 4 years, 3 sets of plane tickets together, International bank transfers of money from me to her going back 3 years and photos of us together with friend and family in various locations around the world. Its a bit of a complicated situation as we met in philippines while was working out there for almost 2 years, then we lived apart due to visa restrictions with me going back visiting her 3 or 4 times a year and her coming to the uk for 6 months to visit a few years ago, that lasted up until we got married this May, I then stayed in the philippines for 2 months now we are both in the uk. I'm hoping this should be sufficient evidence of our long term relationship, the only thing I bothered about is somewhere states that must have lived together for 12 months prior to the application, but I'm pretty sure this is only for Defacto couples that arn't married. We have no evidence of living together as when we did in the philippines on a small island its all cash with no receipts to the landlord with everything included so no electric bills. Have any of you had similar request? what type on information did you upload? I've looked around but hardly found any other cases with this request so would be interested to hear from anyone. Cheers

The MEM certificate is worth 10 points though and is "QCF certificate 3" on the education drop down box, putting Australia as the country of institution as thats the certificate issuing country. Not sure what you'd do for the dates.

Thats a really long wait! I'm not sure what you can do other than wait to be honest. In NSW they pick equally pointed candidates of the same trade by English score over work experience, so if you're in a heavily applied for trade then they'll go for the highest english test scorer, but it could be any number of reasons for the delay such as the trade group hitting the occupation ceiling at state or national level or just a random delay in processing of that trade, its impossible to say. If you did want to give yourself an edge you could try PTE-A to get a higher english score, for a native english speaker who's computer savvy it seems to be easier to achieve the higher results then IELTS, but it'll cost about £200, lots of revision time and has a good chance of doing nothing so not really sure that I'd recommend doing it, although it would also boost your points by 10 as well. Links below have look around the occupation ceilings. http://www.industry.nsw.gov.au/live-and-work-in-nsw/visas-and-immigration/skilled-nominated-migration-190/selecting-applicants https://www.border.gov.au/Busi/Empl/skillselect - click on occupation ceilings tab, but these are national ceilings not state

This is totally correct, I'm really sorry for the misinformation on my previous quote. Must have got the questions muddled up. Thank you for the correction Raul.

I had the same problem when I went through as sheet metal worker, where I was losing 10 points. On the EOI you need to select "YES" to "do you meet the australian study requirements" then enter it as a QCF level III or equvilent. I have the MEM30305 certificate (sheet metal worker) its worth 10 points. For dates I used the date that my work evidence started in the skills assessment to the date the MEM certificate was issued. For the campus I used the Australian one on the skill assessment, but I didn't claim point for experience. Another thing you need to be very careful of is your overseas experience. If you got your NVQ through apprenticeship the time before the NVQ doesn't count as its not seen as skilled work. I owned a sheet metal fabrication company for 5 years but learnt on the job as I went, no formal training. I passed the vetassess and skills assessment but was informed that even though I had 5 years experience I wasn't able to claim points for it, the QCF3 is a 4 year course, therefore 4 years work experience was counted as on the job training. I applied with only the 10 point qualification from vetassess and 20 points on english test, the rest was age and state sponsorship. Over claiming on points is an instant rejection. You'll still have 10 points with 5 years overseas experience (giving you 60 and enough) if that does drop you below the 8 years for 15pts. Hope this helps you out,

Hi Guys, I got my NSW Invitation 10 days after submitting the EOI. Applied the same day and got it approved 15 days later! I'm going in as a sheet metal worker with 55+5. I got R90-L90-S90-W84 on PTE-A, equivalent to 9s and 8.5 on IELTS. I checked the occupation ceilings and sheet metal worker has a cap of 1000 with only 3 successful so far so wondering if that speeded it up for me, as I got assigned a case worker on the main application after 2 weeks as well! Unfortunately its been delayed by a Vietnamese police clearance that we may or may not need (wife spent 350 days in vietnam!) Our friend got theirs in 3 days from the police in Hanoi, but when they submitted the documents for us they got told to come back and get it in 3 weeks!

Thats great to hear, Thankyou!

Hi Guys I'm after a bit of advice on police checks, I've got through to the final stage of a 190 visa, the CO contacted us regarding medicals and police clearance. giving us 28 days to reply as is standard. Now the complicated bit is my Wifes police clearances, we'd already uploaded her Filipino one (her home country) but she'd spent 11 and half months in Vietnam the year before so I originally thought we wouldn't need one (12 months or over being the rule), as they still had a police requirement on her further documents list (along with medical and relationship evidence requests). I contacted the CO via e-mail to ask if she could clarify weather the Vietnamese one is required, no answer after 7 days so I called the helpline from the UK after about 20 calls I got through, they told me it would be a requirement. So we went to the London embassy then sent all the documents to Vietnam, Parcel force lost them for a few days before finally delivering them, our friend applied for the certificate on my wifes behalf today. They told him to pick up the clearance on the 26th dec (no way to speed it up), this is 2 weeks after the deadline for our clearances on the 12th Dec. I'm going to e-mail my CO about the issue but a bit concerned that the messages don't get through due to the past no reply. I'll also upload a scanned copy of the application along with parcel forces tracking and the apology from them delaying it. Unfortunately my friend doesn't have a receipt or proof of submission in english (other then messenger conversation with me) Are immigration usually understanding about these issues? as I'm getting really worried about overrunning the deadline now. Cheers John

Hi Guys, hoping for a little advice on Police clearances, I'm about to put a 190 application in for me and my wife. On the government website its says you need a police clearance for any country you've lived in for more then 1 year, My wife spent 11 months 3 weeks in Vietnam, now thats not a year but its very very close, is there a chance they'll ask for one anyway or do they always go with the rules exactly? The problem is that its very difficult to get a police clearance from Vietnam which may even involve a trip there! A friend has suggested an interpol clearance as a possible alternative as this covers all countries, anybody know if that works with 190 applications as I've not seen it anywhere before. I also spent time over in the philippines, 1.5 years but returned to the uk for a month half way through, will I need a clearance for that? I can get one but may take a while! Cheers for any help

I'm having problems with the form 80 too! I've just got the visa invite through so am going to get the 80 filled out if they ask for it. I did the 3months farm work 8 years ago for my second Australian travel/working visa, i worked at 3 places but can't remember the farm names just the towns they are in, also I'm not 100% sure if they put all my work through the books. Although they did grant the second year visa from the information I gave so must be ok I guess. Do they check all the tax against previous records? On the form would I be ok putting the dates of the 4 months I was travelling and working then putting "seasonal work on various farms in Bundaburg and Canarvon" Also the rest of my job history I only know the month it started and ended as I don't have the paper work for anything from before 5 years ago. Cheers for any help you can give.

Hi Bobbie, thanks for the reply, thats good I don't need to prove anything about those jobs, it would have been a nightmare trying to find evidence. Although I am a little concerned with my time in the Philippines as was on a tourist visa while working, but the local immigration guy used to come to the hotel I worked at to renew my visa every 2 months and said it was fine, although people are a bit chilled about these things in small town Philippines so I'm not entirely sure now!

Hi Everyone, I'm applying for a 190 visa, I've got the EOI in and just waiting/hoping to be invited. I was reading that later I'll need to fill in all previous employment since school in form 20 if it goes that far. I used to work and travel as a sports instructor and have worked in a few countries in Africa and Asia, I never kept any of the work permits I had, some of which were never entered into my passport or on my previous passport so I can't prove the legality of me working in those countries. Will the Australian government be checking this? should I just not claim I worked there (I'm not claiming points for it). Although it would be a little difficult to explain what I was doing during those 5 years. Anyone else had a similar situation?

Hi Guys I'm just finishing up my EOI, I've got all the certificates and points sorted, just wanted to make sure I'm entering my Trade Certificate correctly as its not that straight forward. I have a Certificate 3 in engineering and a positive skills assessment from TRA recognising my UK work experience/qualifications but never did an actual course as such. Under the Education history field I've answered: Qualification: AQF certificate III Course Name: ______ trades worker Institution name: Engineering Training Australia Country of Institution: Australia Campus: ????? (i've been awarded the certificate while in the UK through TRA so I've just put the address thats on the top of my assessment result form) postcode: same as above Date from: ????? must be filled but really not sure what date to enter as not actually studied in australia. Date to: **/**/2016 Date certificate awarded. So its really just the 'date from' field I'm concerned about, do I put it starting from 3 years prior to the end date as thats how long a course should last, (although thats kind of suggesting I've been Australia doing the course) Or should I just put it the day before (but that would make it a one day course) or does it even matter, will they just register as having the certificate and the qualification date so the start date isn't really important. Any help or advice would be much appreciated. Cheers!