Ausvisitor

7 hours ago, JetBlast said:

I certainly did - and got a nice tax refund as a result!

But you would have got that anyway at the end of the year, you didn't get a refund for leaving you got a refund based on how much you earnt and how much tax had been withheld

23 hours ago, calNgary said:

Try hitting a Hong Kong mattress..

       Cal x

I'm sure this used to say mistress, or is my dyslexia playing up again? Certainly more salubrious the way I read it

I would say yes, so long as you still live regionally and have already done a year working regionally since the grant of the 489

7 hours ago, Phil1712 said:

Absolutely ridiculous that the government is still allowing people to apply for visas when there is such a huge backlog 

Why, they want the best applicants, there is no guarantee that the best people are already in the queue so if we are doing migration for the good of Australia it stands to reason we leave the process open

If your agent has been doing this for a while and is comfortable leaving the submission to the last day, I doubt this is the first time he has run over by a short amount, so he probably has more experience of whether it is an issue or not than anyone else 

Hope he's correct as it will save you a lot of worrying 

2 hours ago, Ken said:

A bank would probably be willing to give you an agreement in principle. What happens though is that to actually get your mortgage it has to go through the full approval process and have the loan agreed by the underwriters. If you are still in a probationary period at that point I think it would be a problem but if you can time it so that doesn't happen I can't see why you wouldn't be able to get the ball rolling before hand.

Always make sure that if you make an offer on a property that it's clearly "subject to finance" even when you have got an agreement in principle since there's no obligation on the bank to follow through on those agreements.

PS: I notice your user name is "Ausvisitor". I hope that's not an indication of your visa status or you won't be getting a mortgage! 

Maybe it needs to be updated to Ausresident now

I need to add some more colour to my answer above as I've had a few PMs asking about it.

The key part to the CISSP is the fact you need 5 years relevant experience to even take it, this is far more valuable than the actual qualification.

I know many people (I have them working for people who work for me) who started the exam learning and took the exam in under 6 weeks from start to finish, and the average time for anyone we put through the certification if we need qualified people is 10 weeks.

When you look at those numbers, why would we hire someone we don't know just because they have a piece of paper when we could instead spend less time and hassle just allowing one of our already trusted team to get certified (answer is simple - we wouldn't).

I'm not saying there isn't value in the CISSP qualification, there undoubtedly is, but it isn't the silver bullet to unlocking employment that it is touted as. 

Simply put, it's nice if you've got it, but whether you have it or not would not influence a hiring decision. So you need to be good at everything else and not have the "attitude of entitlement" that seems to be attached to CISSP holders (for the avoidance of doubt, I too have this certification it has not changed what I do day to day one bit, I just needed it once for a client pre-requisite).

Its certainly good to be able to prove you have these skills, but the market is awash with people that either have the cert or comparable experience and as a result the demand to hire those people is weak at the moment and that's if you can get through the visa process in the first place.

Look at PTE as well, I know lots of degree educated Brits that mess up IELTS (including me) but PTE I got full marks in every section

17 minutes ago, Marisawright said:

While you are on probation, it's unlikely the banks will look at you.  "Probation" is, strictly speaking, a temporary position. Unless things have changed since I worked for a mortgage provider.

That's what I thought would be the case, however will they only start to consider at the end of the period, or would they look now with the view to only lending once the period was over 

(I suppose I could always ask a bank)

12 minutes ago, Marisawright said:

If you can't afford to privately rent in the UK, how do you plan to afford it in Australia?  Rentals are very expensive here.

I can second that, they are shocking. Much higher than the UK. Sydney and Melbourne rental prices right now make London seem cheap

Hi

So as a newbie to AUS my job comes with a probation period (as I suspect most do).

Anyone know what sort of issues this might pose in raising a mortgage?

Looking to borrow about $850k, all the bank calculators are happy with this based on salary levels and deposit to loan values but will the probation bit be the fly in the ointment?

Cheers 

1 hour ago, Marisawright said:

Actually, it is strictly legal.  In Australian law, being de facto is almost identical to marriage in most respects.  However just moving in with someone does not mean you are de facto.  You could just be flatmates.  So there are stringent requirements to prove you've been leading a genuinely shared life for some time.  They used to be a lot less stringent but the Australian government got tired of the number of people claiming a fake de facto relationship just to stay in the country.  Now the burden of proof is verging on ludicrous.

Yes it's gotten so bureaucratic nowadays I fully expect the next iteration of the rules to involve having to video tape your "encounters together" and attach it to the immi portal for the case officer to verify you are actually in a full relationship 

1 minute ago, Blue Flu said:

There are ways and don't need a university qualification. A trade will surmount. One needs a sympathetic boss willing to sponsor, not saying always easy, but have known people who got it that way. Another a Korean female who rented a room from me many years ago, always stated she would not return to Korea and did just that by actively seeking a relationship. 

 

The relationship option is there, but it's been made harder by the burden of proof (over 12 months of proof you are in a defacto married relationship - i.e. doing "adult things" not just good friends)

4 hours ago, Apl said:

I have 4 years of University Bachelor Degree, 8 years of experience Cyber Security and CISSP, Microsoft Azure, Cisco certification. Please suggest what are my chances of getting PR Visa.

The problem you have is that Australia treats these roles as part of the IT grouping that has quotas (on top of the general visa quotas) so you need really high points totals to get a visa. You don't say what you think you would have in terms of visa points, but anything below 85 (higher if looking for a 189 visa) is unlikely to be successful.

On another note, I've interviewed nearly 50 people in the last 6 weeks, almost all of them had those certifications, and we only made 2 job offers (despite having many open roles) and one of those didn't even have those quals.

If you have a good job where you are (which you should with those certs) don't necessarily think it will be better here, I don't think Australia is as desperate for those skills as people think

11 hours ago, The Gees said:

Wonder if anyone can advise? I am filling in the visa application / ELodgement form following invitation to apply for a 491 family visa. It asks for details of studies at secondary level or above. I have given degree / postgrad qualifications but do I really need to also include A Levels and GCSE's? The form doesn't 'work' easily for these.

Many thanks!

I gave them all, 3 degrees, 4 A levels, 3 AS levels and 11 GCSE. I don't remember the form not "working" easily.

Yes it is a pain, but the choice is yours you can fill it in and maybe get offered a visa or roll the dice, ignore the question and maybe get knocked back for not giving them information that is in the public domain anyway 

Your tax documents p60 etc. will provide that information if you can't get from your employers 

51 minutes ago, Marisawright said:

....however the whole amount (18,000 GBP) will have to be declared as income in Australia.  It's treated as if you suddenly earned an extra 18,000 GBP on your salary that particular year.  It just gets added on, so you'll pay a high tax rate on the whole amount.

Yes, whilst you would save some UK tax, when you then declare it in AUS, you are taxed as having received the whole 18k, you then offset the tax you paid in the UK (on the 14k) and pay the difference to the AUS taxman.

So assuming a similar tax rate between the two countries (which isn't exactly the case but it's not massively different) you would end up paying tax in the whole 18k, 75% of the tax amount to the UK, and the other 25% to the AUS tax service 

Can totally agree with the above poster, northern Marrickville is really nice, a little noisy due to the planes, but that's a problem in most if the Sydney area

3 hours ago, Jibba said:

Thanks for the reply. Does the emergency passport extend beyond 21 days? And can I use an emergency document for a route which is already booked? I have the main return flight from Melbourne to London and seperate flights between London - Finland and then Finland - Spain one way then one way back from Spain to England.

I’m thinking if I can get my Mum to attend an appointment in the London embassy to get a new passport for me before I arrive then I won’t need to worry about onward trips within Europe.

The big problem is trying to actually book a passport renewal appt at the embassy in London. Currently there are no available appointments and not even a calendar showing - just an automated response saying there’s nothing available!

Does anyone know how I can actually speak with someone from the embassy in Melbourne? I tried calling with no joy and emailed - australia.enquiries@fcdo.gov.uk though I’m not sure they’re the right department.

Thanks.

 

Your mum can't attend the appointment for you, it has to be the applicant 

6 hours ago, Onward said:

I’m moving to work in Geelong on a 482 visa in July.

We’ve sold our house in Canada and there are a few logistical challenges I had not anticipated.

First, we’re looking to rent and it seems that it’s very difficult to rent a house until we actually arrive for a variety of reasons. Even then, the rental process seems reasonably complicated compared to Canada.

Without being able to secure a long term rental, we have no physical address to ship our stuff too. We’ve sold or given away all of our furniture, but we still have some personal items to ship from Canada.

It seems that it’s not possible rent a storage unit remotely?

Also, I’m not accustomed as a professional to not even getting a response when sending property rental inquiries from realtors. Is there something I’m missing here?

We’d be fine with renting a house a month before we arrive, but that would create insurance issues as here in Canada, you have to have your property checked every 72hrs when you’re away.

Also, we can’t even seem to get a post office box prior to arrival as it seems you have to present in person and show id. This leaves us without an address to forward our mail.

Our current plan is to rent an Airbnb house for a month or two, but that still leaves us without a shipping address prior to leaving.

 

Any help with navigating these challenges would be greatly appreciated.

 

 

 

I'm interested to find out what you are going to be doing in Geelong. I go there a bit to visit clients, Geelong seems to have two industries.

Vineyards and Gov departments displaced from Melbourne to share employment out into the shires.

Its a lovely place, second biggest town in Victoria (but 18 times smaller than Melbourne), only an hour on the train to the big city though, and just 1.5 hours on a plane to a proper world class city in Sydney from Avalon airport.

I really liked Geelong, but it's too small for us, we are London/Toronto/Sydney CBD dwellers

3 minutes ago, purplealster said:

Is this an advert?

The original might have been, but I'm not sure my response post would be used as an advert

It sounds like a good school my only reservation is that hillsong is close to being a cult.

I'm not sure I would have been happy with my kids going to a school associated to an organisation with a well publicised sexual abuse problem, but as others have said people are free to make their own choice on the experience they want for their kids.

Yes I just did the UK one for 21/22 and they owe me a fair bit there to

Going to be a good July/August

Pickford's have always been pretty good whenever I've moved internationally in the past. Wouldn't hesitate to use them again.

At the Marvel stadium right now watching my first ever AFL game (or indeed any Aussie rules game).

Incredibly good fun to watch but totally bonkers, and it's going to take a while to get my head around the rules 

Any shortcuts to understanding this game?