DrDougster
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Posts posted by DrDougster
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38 minutes ago, Ken said:
But aren't you in Australia? As such you're not eligible for the scheme.
Who knows what the details will und up being?!
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Indeed 350 a month. It will be interesting to see if there’s further help with tax, insurance etc. It would be great to feel we could do something
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Meant to be a website going up this week. My understanding is that you can volunteer room(s) or an entire house. 350 quid a week. But, if it were the whole house then you'd hope the council would do something about the council tax too.
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I emailed Iron Lady a few weeks ago and no response. Are they still in business? Any other recommendations for car shipping?
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We're considering the implications of inviting a Ukrainian family to use our house in UK. It will be very interesting to see if there's additional council tax relief etc. for properties volunteered for this scheme and what the mortgage companies will categorise it as if remortgaging is needed.
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Don’t use AusPost: they’re so slow!
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Thanks Quoll, sound advice.
Passport office has notified me that it's being printed...
I don't think AusPost will get it here in time!
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12 hours ago, Marisawright said:
How would we know? A mortgage obtained fraudulently is a mortgage obtained fraudulently. If your fraud has caused the bank to act illegally (i.e. by giving a loan to a foreigner against banking regulations) then you can bet they will take action to rectify. Of course, the bank may never find out, but is it worth the risk?
As @can1983 says, lots of migrants still have a mortgage on their UK property, but it's the mortgage they held when they left the country, and they either had a suitable mortgage before they left, or they got letting consent on their existing mortgage. All perfectly legal.
You'd know through the normal channels of communication. That is to say, as soon as this topic was brought up on here (which it regularly is) someone would say "Lordy, NO! I lost my house doing that!" Grey is grey. I wouldn't bet much at all. Yes, probably!
I tend to agree with can1983 that the "best" action is to let it slip onto SVR and make all the payments. I really doubt there would ever be any problem created by this unless it's a multi-million pound scam. It is a bit of a scam though and you'd have to be ok with that. Losing the ability to make the payments may be uncomfortable.
Not sure I'll feel comfortable enough with the strategy to be ok with it...
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Has anyone ever made the repayments on their mortgage and actually 'lost the house' because the type of mortgage wasn't correct or they were living overseas?
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Because we've got the best coal in the world! (Puts head in hands)
Almost certain to keep going I'd have thought as there are lots of things that will no longer be bought from Russia that may be bought from Australia.
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I know, it's me again with more passport problems!
So my old UK passport is with the passport office in Durham - sent 4th Feb, received 7th March!!!
We're flying back to UK for three months with Singapore airlines on 1st April. What are the chances of my new passport arriving in time? When do I bite the bullet and get an emergency travel document. When should I make the ticket changes as I booked the ticket with my old passport or can I just rock up to the airport with the new documents?
ps My wife had no issue with only having two months on her UK passport coming back to Aus.
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Certainly didn’t want the Aus dollar to strengthen for this reason but it’s surely gonna keep going.
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If we're really going off topic, thinking of the like for like cost is probably not useful. We certainly don't want the same things here as we do in UK. For example our $100K Mercedes in UK is replaced by a $12K secondhand Hyundai here and we're not bothered at all. We just don't feel the need for the flash car here. However, I don't have a $2K coffee machine in UK and that seems an absolute essential here!
Professional costs were the most expensive things for us and they need factoring in.
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5 hours ago, Marisawright said:
I know the OP said "foot in the ground" but I think it's always worth mentioning, because I think some people get a distorted view of the "cost of moving" as just the journey itself. And then it's a shock when they haven't budgeted for kitting out a household from scratch, something most people never have to do, so they don't realise how many thousands it's going to cost.
It probably cost less to furnish a house than I'd have guessed and highlighted the amount of crap you accumulate and just don't need. We've been in a rented house for over two years and we're starting to accumulate it again!
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11 minutes ago, rammygirl said:
Check countries of transit too as some require a certain validity even if not planning to enter. Otherwise as said you should be OK with UK and Aus.
Thanks rammygirl. She's going via Singapore so I think that's fine through the transit path.
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8 hours ago, Tulip1 said:
Has your wife checked other passport offices as London tends to get booked up quickly. Peterborough passport office is worth a try.
Yeah, nothing this week
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29 minutes ago, DIG85 said:
Neither the UK nor Australia has a minimum passport validity requirement.
As a UK passport holder, I would have thought in your wife's case the more relevant question would be minimum passport validity for Australia. The minimum passport validity rules are generally of no application where you are entering the country of your citizenship.
Yup, I meant Australian immigration / border control to get back to Aus next weekend.
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My wife flew back to UK last week in an emergency and was planning to go to the passport office at Victoria to renew her passport next week before flying back on Sat.
Turns out this isn't possible - no appointments.
Her passport expires 28th April. We have flights to UK booked on 1st April. Will these flights satisfy immigration that she has sufficient time on her passport for the duration of her stay?
Theoretically should be ok but anyone any further insight. or tried this?
Alternative is to push her return flight back and leave me looking after our four year old for another week!
We're PR on a 190.
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On 08/10/2021 at 16:18, Searchingforsun said:
Hi, that is a good point...but luckily it is for a 190 PR visa so all fine on that note but worth pointing out for others reading the post in similar situation.
He doesn't pull in any extra funding at all in school and has always been in mainstream (he has 3 years left in secondary school now).
He is prescribed medication but that is all.
While there might not be support funding, he may well find superior psychiatric care in Australia in the future should any review in diagnosis or medication be needed.
All the best.
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Awesome, thank you. I guess I have no faith in Aus post but needs must...
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Dumb question...
We have PR but haven't been out of the country on it yet and our passports expire March/April next year. What's the best plan for renewal? If I do an online renewal and get delivered to my parents in UK will the issue of a new passport while we're here in Aus impact on on our PR visa? Is this a reasonable thing for us to do or do we have to go to an embassy?
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1 hour ago, Marisawright said:
To be fair, @DrDougster, how many Australian properties have you rented?
My experience renting several different properties in Sydney was pretty good overall, and no different to what I experienced in the South of England. I'm less impressed with my Melbourne agent, but that's partly because the owners are in Shanghai and don't speak English.
I would agree that when it comes to buying, I don't trust any agent further than I would throw them, but that's a different story - there's usually no overlap between the "boring" property management side and the glossy real estate sales side of an agency. I also don't know how that compares with British real estate practices these days.
Enough to make me never want to rent again - gathering deposit and stamp duty!
30 minutes ago, JetBlast said:This doesn’t reflect my experience. Our agent has been great.
OP - when I applied for my rental they didn’t even ask about my immigration status.
These seem contradictory sentences.
OP - good luck with it. Take photos of ANY damage, no matter how small, when you move in. Normal wear and tear is an alien concept in Aus, Be prepared to shell out for a "bond clean" when you move out.
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Be prepared for estate agencies in Aus to excel at performing well below expectations in nearly all regards. Email responses, telephone calls, negotiation with owners, you name it, they're shit at it!
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On 06/07/2021 at 07:18, Andrew from Vista Financial said:
It's fine, happy to answer questions generally, time permitting.
You are right the NHS do not provide a historic transfer value however you are not looking for a historic transfer value, you are simply trying to understand what your benefits were worth ie annual pension/lump sum, when you arrived.
If your time of arrival was close to when you left the NHS they do provide benefits figures for date of leaving, alternatively you may have a statement of some form showing what your annual pension was close to when you arrived (typically with the NHS the lump sum is 3x annual pension):
Failing all of that then a calculation would need to be carried out by essentially working back (or forward if you have benefits from date of leaving and this is not close to you arriving in OZ) by using the method of revaluation that applies (this would be mainly CPI/RPI (perhaps an element at a fixed rate if there is any GMP involved).
If need be the ATO will give a private ruling on it, if you provide them with all of the revelant information:
Applying for a private ruling | Australian Taxation Office (ato.gov.au)
Regards the assessment of the growth of the lump sum, there is no special rate of tax it is simply added to marginal tax rate in the year of receipt.
Hope this helps.
Andy.
Andy, I seriously owe you a beer.
I just managed to get verified on digidentity, log on to myGov and get my NHS pension statement in a .pdf download.
All this in-between a cancelled patient and a coffee in my clinic that everyone is scared of coming to today!
Cheers Dude!
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Mortgage and inviting refugees in UK
in Renting & Real Estate
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Thanks Amber. Lots of questions not on the FAQs! Hopefully more details will emerge and we'll be able to help out when we are back in UK for a few months from April. It would be nice if we could work out how to offer the house on our return to Aus.