NikkyNow

Hi everyone, I received my gold ticket a week ago and wanted to share some info with you. Here you go In de-facto relationship for 3 years at the time of lodging the application. Lodged online, outside of Australia and without an agent. my timeline: 24th June 2018: applied online in the Uk (I am a Slovak citizen- Eu) Since we lived in London, Australian Commission in London was automatically allocated my application. 28th September 2018: uploaded my Acro (uk police clearance) and health check (without being asked. I did it because I feared I would not be able to get all missing documents within 28 days from the first day of their contact. I didn't want to miss the deadline and thus get my application back to the queue) 15th November: first contact from the Commission: request for more info (my police clearance from Slovakia, partner's police clearance from Australia and Uk) 26th November 2018: loaded requested documents 1st December 2018: 309 and 100 visa granted (was living with my partner exactly 3 years when we lodged our application- we actually waited with lodging the application a couple of months in order to qualify for the permanent residency) Thing that I wasn't sure about: Certifying police clearance- when an officer contacted us asking for our police clearances, he said that the clearances should be certified. THIS HOWEVER ISN'T THE CASE IF YOU LODGED APPLICATION ONLINE!! I asked the Commission about certifying documents before we lodged my application and I was informed that in case of online application, documents don't need to be certified, including police clearance. Just make sure you provide them with scans in colour EU national applying in the Uk- I am from Slovakia, which is part of the EU, but I was living in the Uk at the time of submission of the application. I wasn't sure if my application would be dealt with in my country of origin or country of residence. Eventually it became clear that my application was dealt with in the country of residence (Uk) Average processing time for Uk based applicants (IF YOU SUBMIT enough documents proving your relationship) is around 6 months. Of course it can be more if your original application is not complete and thus has to be requested more information several times. Traveling while my application is being processed- this one was the scariest thing which I actually didn't consult anyone about. A couple of months into submitting my application, we decided to quit our jobs and go travelling for 7 months while my application was being processed. We had a couple of friends who applied for the same visa a year ago and since they were granted their visa within 4 months despite the average processing time being 12 months (lodging in London), we decided to take the risk and went travelling while visa was being processed. The plan was that the visa would be granted while we were travelling (and it worked out perfectly whoop!). So the great news is that you can go travelling while your application is processed (I am talking only about OFFSHORE cases, don't know what the rules are for ONSHORE applications) GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR APPLICATIONS