Aussiebird

18 minutes ago, AliQ said:

You can phone the agent and arrange for a viewing at another time if you wish. When we sold, we had viewings after work in addition to our "open home" on a Saturday.

Open days are a great way to view though, especially if there are a few houses in the same area, you can usually nip around and see them all in the space of an hour.  I think it's so much easier to view homes in Aus.

That's  great, thank you.

1 hour ago, Aussiebird said:

This is very informative,  thank you.  I thought though, it's up to 430k there is no stamp duty in WA? 

We would be first time buyers (established property) and plan to live in it permanently.   Cash buyer, no mortgage.

I am reading so many different things about first home owner grants and stamp duty.

Do you not pay stamp duty up to 430k if you are only elegible for the first home owner grant and it must not be an established property?

We are not keen on building so is there no help for first time buyers who do not want to build, but want to buy an established home (WA).

TIA xx

9 hours ago, BobHatton said:

In the case of buying a house then until the contract is unconditional then you can back out. There is usually a 'cooling off' period of 7 working days also at the start of signing the contract. Most contracts take 30-60 days to complete depending on your circumstances and the vendors circumstances - these can also be negotiated.

As far as making an offer on a house (and we've bought 12 houses here in Oz) we always start at 7.5% off the asking price (depending on the area and the market at that time). So, if someone is asking $400K for a house, my first offer would be $370,000 ($400K - 7.5%). If this was not accepted then I'd take my 'Final offer' to 5% off the asking price (i.e. $380,000 in this case) and if this was not accepted then I'd walk away - there are literally thousands of properties on the market.

When buying also beware of stamp duty. This differs from state to state; Examples on a $400,000 home.

NSW - $13,719

ACT - $8,562

QLD - $6,426

WA - $13,434

NT - $16,812

SA - $19,820

TAS - $14,348

 

These are government charges and are NON-NEGOTIABLE. Make sure you've got enough to cover these charges. Solicitors usually cost around $1500 for conveyancing too.

This is very informative,  thank you.  I thought though, it's up to 430k there is no stamp duty in WA? 

We would be first time buyers (established property) and plan to live in it permanently.   Cash buyer, no mortgage.

Can you only view a property if its an open day in Australia?

in the UK, you just phone the agent to book an appointment to view and either the agent or vendor will show you round, then you can put an offer in etc...

Is it the same in Australia?

Many thanks xx

3 minutes ago, MacGyver said:

Open a transferwise borderless account. You can open a UK account and an Australian account with them and get the card delivered to your UK address. The card works as a visa debit card for both accounts, whichever country you are in. You can transfer money into the local UK account and switch it immediately to your local Australian account. Might be a temporary option until you get to Australia to sort out new cards.

I will look into that, thank you so much xx

1 hour ago, mrsmac said:

 

Address: 23 Camomile Street Camomile Court, London EC3A 7LL, United Kingdom

Phone: +44 20 7621 7000

Thank you so much xx

42 minutes ago, Reboz said:

We flew into Perth yesterday with Emirates. They have one flight a week 

Thanks hun,  So pleased you arrived safely.

I have just called Emirates, they told me from 1st September there will be daily flights to Perth from LHR/LGW and A380's will be in use again.

27 minutes ago, mrsmac said:

Are you calling the London office? They have a local number so it should really be charged at the local call rate. 020 7621 7000.

No, he called an Australian number, but too late now, we will have the charge on our phone bill.  Didnt know there was a London office!!

35 minutes ago, ali said:

There was a Qatar flight arrived today and none scheduled for tomorrow.  If you look on Perth airport international arrivals - you can see which flights are arriving.  I think they're limited to only 3 times a week 

Have just checked, but cant tell where the flight left the UK (which airport).  Just says its from Doha.

6 minutes ago, Ausvisitor said:

I can't help you with the "how to get the card"; but the link below (and many others on Google) can at least cut your phone bill done from £5.50 a minute to approx 1p a minute

https://www.0044.co.uk/australia/cheap-international-calls

You don't need the money in an Australian bank account to pay for quarantine though, any debit or credit card (issued in any country) can be used to pay for the quarantine stay. So whilst you might pay an inflated card use fee to spend the $3-5000 dollars on a UK debit card, it will be much less than paying £5.50 a minute for 10 minutes (which I presume is the least amount of time you'd need to sort this out over the phone assuming there was no wait time to begin with)

Thanks for the reply.  Hubby ended call after waiting 20 mintues in a queue!  Have managed to access online banking now, just need to sort our accounts out.

16 minutes ago, ali said:

Open a new account and sort out the other when you arrive

 

We can't,  because you can only get a card when actually in Australia.  We need card details to access online banking or to register, but we are already registered, just not allowing us access when we put in ID and password.

5 minutes ago, ali said:

There are limited international flights arriving in Perth

Thanks Ali, I need to find out which airlines are flying to Perth. 

Hi,

In a bit of a dilema and wondered if anyone esle experienced this?

We have our accounts with Westpac, however, we have no cards for the accounts, the last card expired years ago and was never replaced. Our accounts are still active.

We cannot get onto our online banking at all or even the app, have emailed the bank and was told we cannot apply for cards unless we are in Australia.  We cannot even change our address to the one we are staying at as we have to have a code! 

We urgently need to get this sorted as we need to transfer money over from the sale of our home and to pay for quarantine.  We have to have money in our account for when we arrive.

Now trying to ring Westpac but just on hold, could take ages to get through and its costing us £5.50 plus vat per minute!  How do other people go about accessing there accounts from the UK?  

Not impressed at all!  Getting very stressed out about this!!

Are flights to Perth affected from the UK?

40 minutes ago, Brenmav said:

@Aussiebird  

Total for one adult	Total for two adults	Total for family of four – example: two adults, two children
$2,520	$3,360	$5,040

Looks like it might be 4,200

 

That would be better than 7,500!!

52 minutes ago, ali said:

Costs for WA $2,5020 1 adult, $3,360 2 adults, $5, 040 family of 4, Children U 6 not charged for meals.  

You get an invoice at the end and pay within 30 days.

https://www.wa.gov.au/government/publications/paying-hotel-quarantine-wa-frequently-asked-questions

Thanks Ali, doesn't say what age a child goes up to? So for us it's 2 adults and a 16 year old, does that mean we would have to pay 3x$2,5020? Or $3,360 plus $2,5020?

If we get charged per adult becasue there is 3 of us then it works out more expensive than 4 people!! This is such a lot of money to find!!

It's not like it's a holiday at the hotel!! 

2 hours ago, Reboz said:

Will let you know this week...we are flying tomorrow with emirates all being well So will be able to give more Info on here once we get there xx

Awe thanks hun,  best of luck, hope all goes well for you.  Do you know the name of the hotel you are going to and how much they are charging for quarantine?

Thanks hun. Xx

8 hours ago, Nemesis said:

and thats $200 pp per day

1 hour ago, Nemesis said:

Each State has a list of hotels which have agreed to be used. You will not know for sure until you arrive. 

It's more the cost that i want to know, but someone on here said prices not known yet in WA.

Does anyoneknow if the Pan Pacific Hotel in Perth is where you go for quarantine?  I'm sure I've read on here someone was staying there during quarantine? 

Are there going to be more than one quarantine hotel in Perth?

3 hours ago, Drumbeat said:

I don't think the cost has been announced in WA yet.

Ok thank you.

1 minute ago, Drumbeat said:

It' s going to depend on the State I believe. This info is about NSW:

https://www.executivetraveller.com/news/australia-sydney-quarantine-hotel-cost

Ok thank you.  I cant find any information for WA and flying into Perth or which hotel we will be directed too,  we need to find out the cost of all this so we can adjust our budgeting etc......

1 hour ago, ali said:

There will be a restriction of the number of people entering WA from overseas to 525 per week initially for 4 weeks (then reviewed).  From July 17th you will have to pay for the 14 day quarantine  https://www.wa.gov.au/organisation/department-of-the-premier-and-cabinet/covid-19-coronavirus-travel-wa

Thank you for the reply Ali.  I wonder if quarantine can be paid for in different ways to help people who don't have the money up front?  Does anyone have any information on this please? Also, how do we find out how much it will be? Surely we can find out? 

Thank you xx

We have accepted an offer on our house (yesterday) so hopefully we will be there by the end of the year.

It looks like further cap on arrivals into WA? Anyone heard about this recently please? 

TIA xx

8 hours ago, Marisawright said:

Flights were always likely to be cancelled at the last minute, even before Covid, so of course Qatar would say that.   I've had it happen to me - the most memorable was when the flight was cancelled after I'd arrived at the airport (engine trouble).   The only difference now is that flights are less frequent, so if  a flight is cancelled, there are fewer alternative flights they can transfer you to. 

As I said before - book a flight to Sydney, because Qatar has a few flights to Sydney every day.  If one is cancelled then he will be transferred to the next available one, so it won't disrupt anything.   If he has to stay in quarantine, he won't be allowed to see family anyway.   He's going for the activation and that's your priority.

Oh yes I see what you mean! That makes perfect sense,  i will speak to him later about it. If we do manage to sell our house soon, then it wont be a problem, because work wont be the issue once he has left the job.

Is Sydney one of the places where he would have to pay for quarantine? It's just so he is aware and has the money to do so before he books a flight.