Ausvisitor

50 minutes ago, wrussell said:

If you use a reputable travel agent you get what you pay for. 

If you book online you pay for what you get. Try getting a refund!

Having seen how the UK agents behaved during the pandemic (some taking 12+ months to refund despite airlines having refunded them in many cases) I won't use them ever again.

Getting a refund on a DIY air booking is easy, book with AMEX, if the flight is cancelled or dramatically changed in anyway and the airline refuses to refund, call AMEX they issue a returned credit in 48 hours, they then chase the airline - only if it turns out that you were not entitled to the refund do the ask for the money back

2 hours ago, DukeNinja said:

Not quite. A significant number of financial institutions will not consider you due to tax residency status.

Maybe that's true, we have been told we won't have any issues but we would do it through a company anyway and that would be tax resident in the UK even though the owners of the company aren't

10 hours ago, Marisawright said:

I thought that was pretty much impossible, unless you're willing to get a mortgage with one of those specialist expat companies, who charge very high interest rates?

That is one option 

If you have enough assets left in the UK and can prove rental income and put down 40%+ almost any bank would accept you - but you'd have to go through their broker/referral arm and not the general public retail system (similar rates of interest though)

On 04/02/2022 at 11:53, Ben12345 said:

Hi guys, 

Hoping someone can help. 

Is it possible for me to get a buy to let mortgage in the UK while i live in Australia?

I want to buy a property for my retired mother to live in and wondered if anyone has ever bought property before and what the max LTV is etc? What proof of earnings they look at from Oz?

Thanks for your help. 

Buy to Let always comes with the stipulation that you can't have family living in it while the mortgage is in place. So you would need a standard UK mortgage (which will also be cheaper in repayments anyway so not sure why you would have chosen buy to let anyway)

In answer to your question though, yes you can get a B2L mortgage for a UK property despite living in AUS (although not all provides will over it), however as stated above a B2L is not appropriate in your circumstances (family living in property)

Picked up a bottle of ALDI preciois earth sauvignon blanc tonight, expected it to be a bit rough but it was actually really quite good as a drinking wine (rather than a posing wine)

All the better for it's 2.99 price tag (or 1.58 GBP)

9 hours ago, Chris Pearson said:

My agent said the two incidents aren't an issue and she'd let me know when she hears back from them. My application was lodged 11th January so they assessed it pretty quickly just wondering hiw long I can expect to wait to hear back 

Paul won't be able to comment much on this as all agents have a "gentleman's agreement" not to muddy the waters in each others cases.

Your agent has a "game plan" to get you a grant based on loads of info you have told them, ignoring that and going of info on a forum is not going to help 

3 hours ago, saucer67 said:

Hi just trying to understand the rules around testing and isolation. Im fully vaccinated and wanting to book flights to Brisbane. However many go through Sydney as a layover for example one is a 17 hour layover in Sydney then I would travel to Brisbane. I'm wondering do I need to do a PCR in Sydney in order to fly to Brisbane or only need to get a PCR in Brisbane. I'm confused. 

Also the PCR test needed before flying where can I get a test 3 days before flying, I live in England?

So if you leave the airport you then are working under domestic rules, and so you'd need to Google what the transit rules are in place between Sydney and Brisbane. You'd also need to comply with Sydney Lateral Flow Test requirement in order to be able to get back to the airport.

If you never left the airport airside (which would be dull and probably not allowed) you would not need a new test as you haven't left the "sterile zone"

Word of warning - bring your own lateral tests, they are very expensive here (14 dollars each) and the UK ones are the same so get a pack of NHS tests in your luggage

1 hour ago, wrussell said:

Your travel agent should be able to advise you.

 

 

 

This isn't 1999, almost no-one uses a travel agent anymore.

Same as any other career.

The main sticking point is whether your career is on the list of jobs Australia is looking to bring people in to fill.

It's quite hard to look up which careers are being accepted by AUS (since a really good site anzscosearch stared charging), but a quick Google seems to suggest the usual visas 189/190/491 aren't an option so unless you have an AUS degree you might struggle.

Best to have a quick consultation with a migration agent on this rather than spend ages trying to hunt down the answer, they will just know it..

1 hour ago, Toots said:

Totally agree.  I have bad memories of the agents we used a couple of times when we rented in Sydney years ago.   Low lifers was my description of them.  

What a relief when we bought our own house.   

They are so vacuous and money grabbing it really annoys me.

Saw one we liked and the agent asked about pay slips, said haven't got any at the moment, they pretty much ran out of the building.

On the way out, they asked us what we thought, we said it wasn't a patch on the property we had just sold in London, suddenly the lack of payslips was not an issue, they'd love to broker an application for us...

Absolute bottom feeders ...

I was always under the impression that UK lettings agent where a certain form of low life that only existed in the UK.

I now realise I was unfair to them, they are perfectly decent human beings compared to their Sydney equivalents.

I'm bringing forward buying a house just to avoid dealing with these absolute charlatans.

Busy first weekday today...

Sorted bank accounts

Switched drivers licence

Tax registration done

Medic application done

Probably found a rental - further checks tomorrow

Two job "drinks interviews" one in an hour and one at 7pm 

7 hours ago, DukeNinja said:

Woohoo! Welcome mate. Not a bad time of year to touch down (at least in Qld).

Day one in my escape from the UK wet weather, got drowned by a downpour at circular quay looking at the opera House... 

Particularly like this new, get off the plane, go to accomodation take a rapid test, if negative get on with life approach, certainly beats the 14 day quarantine we had been expecting when we planned to go

As of 19:00 tonight I am no longer Ausvisitor I am now Ausresident.

Now how do I update my forum name? Surely that takes precedence over mundane stuff like medical, tax, driving licence and banks???

Thanks for all the great ideas, just 12 hours to the flight take off now, I expect sleep tonight will be like a five year old trying to stay up to see Santa on Christmas Eve

3 hours ago, RyanDoris said:

No not yet and unsure when or if I will as I score 75 and the minimum points required for the last round of invitations in my field were 90. I don't think there are any other areas I can increase my points without having Australian work experience.

Is your ANZSCO code not available for a 190 visa anywhere? 75 was enough for many of us to get that visa type

The requirement is that it is no more than six months with any one employer. Other than that pretty much anything goes

It really depends on if the date change is possibly fraudulent (by that I mean does it make the child look like they are 16 when really they are 26)

If it's just a simple typo or swapping day and month then I doubt there will be any issue, and it will all get cleared up when you provide copies of birth cert and passport etc. It might add in a little delay while they update but it shouldn't be anything considerable

3 hours ago, skyeman said:

I think i'd give Qantas the keys to my house for the flight over now haha Kids are asking me every flipping day when we can go and they don't understand that I really cant answer that

I remember those days, everyone asking when you will go, but not having any idea even if it will be possible.

It's a little like when the "future" grandparents call every couple of hours to ask if the baby has been born yet. If it had do you think I wouldn't have already told you....

How old are the kids? Ours is in year 2 at Uni so is going to do a split personality for the next year and a half, term time in UK, holidays in Oz before settling over full time at end of course

1 hour ago, Marisawright said:

What's your budget though?  Can you afford a decent house in a nice area of Sydney?  Our old 2-bedroom townhouse (what you would call a maisonette, I think) in a nice outer suburb is now worth $2 million.

It's true that prices are going up fast outside Sydney, but they are starting from a much lower base.   For instance, a house in Newcastle is still half the price of an equivalent property in an equivalent location in Sydney, even with the price increases.  And everywhere else in NSW is the same.  

I'd say if you're worried about property values, then look at Newcastle.   The sea-changers leaving Sydney are going to smaller, laidback coastal towns (like Lennox Head), not a big city like Newcastle (which is about the same size as Bristol).  So when people do start drifting back to Sydney, it's unlikely to affect Newcastle much.  

Also, let's look at whether the Sydney market realy is depressed at the moment.  One problem with real estate reporting in Australia is that much of it is based on press releases handed out by the Real Estate Institute, which represents real estate agents.  They're always spinning the news to encourage people to buy - either it's "prices are surging, get in fast before you miss out" or "prices are low, it's the perfect time to buy".  

 

Edit:  @Ausvisitor, I recall that you've got a job in Sydney, so obviously that's where you'll need to live.  If you're coming from London you probably won't find the prices too eye-watering.

Not coming from London, but we sold our 5 bed in another UK hotspot so whilst I would prefer to not spend 1.6m we could. With the job we could get a mortgage as well if we really loved the house.

Just now, 31Hillbury said:

Can’t help but think your just being obnoxious! 
congratulations on your visa grant and upcoming trip. Some of us are just waiting for our time to come also! Except without the attitude you seem to always manage to display! 

Honestly mate I can't wait for the day you get your grant, I've watched you wait for ages and I know it must be agony (it was hard enough waiting for mine and it was granted before COVID - just).

I'm not trying to be obnoxious, but I don't subscribe to the "be nice and say what people want to hear" mantra that seems to pervade internet forums, it's far better (in my view) to get the answer you need completely devoid of emotion (but that's just me and I get others are different)

Anyway fingers crossed you will be giving Qantas an obnoxious amount of cash (it really was eye watering) soon to fly to Australia and join us out here!

10 hours ago, nomadiccarpenter said:

Assume you mean 2020, which is still a long time to wait. To answer more politely than others, yes there isn't much you can do to complain as we've all been getting the same generic responses by contacting Home Affairs or political leaders. The good news is, this problem is coming to light more in the news, especially as borders re-open. Seems every week there's good news so I truly believe we're on the other side of this, even if that means we all still may have long wait with the backlog.

There was nothing impolite about my reply, devoid of emotion and purely factual maybe but that isn't impolite 

However, your suggestion that I was impolite is very impolite...

2 hours ago, ramot said:

I honestly don’t want to put you off, I’m one of the posters who loves living here. My niece and young family live in Lennox Head and its a really nice area, but house prices have soared, as people have moved from Sydney as they can work from home and fly  to Sydney from Ballina when needed. 

Good luck with your decision 

Right now I'm hearing that the place to buy is Sydney, the market is depressed (still going up but not at the rate of places like Lennox Head) but of course in the next two years people will get tired of commuting and offices will want people back in (even if they are saying they won't at the moment) ...

Yes, we actually move on Friday, scared the COVID test is positive, equally scared it comes back negative and we have to do it...

Either way we are leaving with 3 suitcases and starting again, having sold up completely (from a 5 bed) including all furniture and cars etc.