Tychen

Firms on both ends are now much more relaxed about requiring people to requalify, in view of the constant ratcheting-up of the requirements for requalification, and the prospect of mutual recognition under the FTA. Because it's so difficult to requalify, firms don't even bother. So not being locally qualified isn't really an obstacle these days for employees working in commercial law. If you are looking to be a partner, or need to stand up in court, then that's a different matter.

• Real sand beaches nearby, that you can enjoy even in so-called winter. We live in the inner west, miles from the ocean, but the little river beaches nearby at places like Gladesville or Putney or Cabarita are perfect for small kids.
• Mango season.
• Ethnic-specific enclaves that aren't exclusionary or grim.
• Seeing the harbour from my office window, not just concrete blocks.
• National parks close to the city - one minute you can see the city skyline, then you turn the corner and spot whales on the horizon.

5 hours ago, happy_chappy said:

My three kids grew up in suburbia and rarely bothered to venture into the city. They had active social lives and were more likely to meet up at places like The Fiddler at Rouse Hill with food,  live music and plenty going on.

'Eat Street' at  Parramatta is another option, it's lined with restaurants, bars and cafes and is at the opposite end of town to Westfield, this precinct has grown massively in recent years. I imagine it's probably much the same in other areas across Sydney.


 

@Marisawright is right. Melbourne is better in this regard. Functioning high streets exist in Sydney, but you have to know where to look. Parramatta has a high street as well as a Westfield. I'd say Burwood and Chastwood are also okay - though the high street in Burwood is very Chinese. Elsewhere, you can find functioning high streets in a lot of the little town centres in the North and in the Inner West - Lane Cove where OP is looking has a very nice village centre, Lindfield is pretty pleasant too. Probably more of them in the Inner West - eg Concord, Leichhardt, Balmain, Homebush, Erskineville, Marrickville are a few that come to mind.

I also find the very ethnic high streets in the southwest quite charming. The very Greek looking Earlwood, the Vietnamese high street near Bankstown station, Little India in Harris Park, or the straight up slice of Southeast Asia that is Cabramatta...

On 16/08/2023 at 09:07, Marisawright said:

Yes, young adults have very different preferences. I don't think Castle Hill Towers will quite cut it...

I visited Castle Towers for the first (and hopefully, last) time last year. It was huge and there were quite a lot of young people there. I understand teenagers from the other end of town might have different preferences, but all the Hills District / Bible Belt youths seemed to be enjoying themselves. I say hopefully last not because there was anything wrong with the shopping centre, but because it was a nightmare trying to get in and out. The place was basically the epicentre of three miles of swirling traffic jams in all directions. 

On the eastern end of the northwest there's Macquarie Centre - that's also huge, is also surrounded by queues of cars, and seems to have a greater variety of things that might appeal to young people. Cinema, ice rink, multiple book stores...

Everyone in the northwest seems to spend all their non-working hours either stuck in a traffic jam or in a giant shopping centre. It's obviously a lifestyle that works for people who live there... Sorry that's gone off topic. The upper north shore where OP Is looking is not the northwest.

What surprised me most when we moved into a house in Sydney (an old Federation-style one) was how leaky it was. There are built-in vents top and bottom on all sides. There were gaps between floorboard and the wall where you could actually see through to daylight via the underfloor vents. Big gaps under all the doors, internal and external. I've read Federation style houses described as "tents on bricks" as far as insulation is concerned, and that's pretty accurate. This is a problem for heating as well as for wildlife. A few years later and we've just about got the ants and slugs under control. We've evicted the possum that's been a long-term tenant in the roof and we haven't had a brush turkey nest in the backyard (yet). But it's been nice getting flocks of colourful corellas in the garden during their migrations. 

13 hours ago, InnerVoice said:

Good info and thanks for sharing, but Hong Kong 'grim' - one of the most amazing cities in the world, and surely still a great stopover?

You are probably right. I haven’t been there since 2018 and my impression it’s grimmer is mainly based on expat friends who’ve moved away due to the continuing political arrests and schools being forced to teach Chinese propaganda etc. - meanwhile issues like finding a clean public toilet haven’t improved. So it’s just a lot more like the other big Chinese cities now, but the political stuff wouldn’t affect you on a stopover.

On 15/07/2023 at 17:09, FirstWorldProblems said:

I am definitely keen to visit China.  Wife not so much and the  economy class reviews for those airlines aren’t great.  Air China has business at £21,250 for the 5 of us…….it was <£11,00  when we booked for April 2020 (cancelled due to Covid)

I’ll look into Bangkok- thanks, 

I've done long stopovers in Shanghai both via China Eastern and via a Qantas/BA connection - you arrive and depart from Pudong Airport, and it was relatively easy to get to Pudong's financial district from there, where you can find Western standard toilets (v important to know where these are when travelling in China), cafes, restaurants etc, and from there you are only a ferry or cab ride away from the old European bits and the old Chinese city across the river. You can stay at quite nice hotels in Shanghai for fairly cheap. China Eastern can be v cheap, and definitely towards the budget end of full service, but it was bearable other than the food, which was terrible. Pack your own sandwich.

Another one I've done is Tokyo. This was when international flights only flew into Narita, I think you might be able to arrive and depart from Haneda now (or a mix of the two). Haneda airport is much closer to town. You can easily stay in say Minato or Akasaka or Odaiba and get quite a bit of sightseeing done in 48 hours.

Hong Kong used to be a comparable option to Singapore, but obviously a lot grimmer now.

On an Emirates/Qantas combination you can do one stopover in Asia, then break up the long second flight further with a stop in Dubai - and it would probably be cheaper than Qantas/BA the whole way.

FWIW, I used to travel out of the UK for work regularly, and sometimes my wife would travel alone with our child from the UK to meet me, so that we could tack on a family holiday. No-one ever asked questions at either end.

My impression was that, in the absence of a dispute from the other parent, the UK border officials only got worked up if the mother's surname didn't match the child's surname. If you are concerned about it, could your partner write a letter to remove all doubt?

8 hours ago, Marisawright said:

Why couldn't you just transfer the money and leave the account empty?  

I forget, it was something to do with the new gadgetry they used to authenticate for online banking. Possibly expired card or needed a new pin to be sent by mail. It worked out eventually but was a lot of hassle.

On 05/07/2023 at 17:22, Quoll said:

If you don't use your account they close it and they will only send new cards to the address on the account. Not sure what evidence they need for a local change of address - wouldn't put it past Barclays to require a utility bill. Most user unfriendly bank I ever had dealings with. 

We had the opposite problem. Tried to close a sBarclays account to consolidate it into an HSBC account after we moved. Barclays wouldn't accept instruction to close over the phone, wouldn't send a cheque to Australia... Sounds like we should have just let it be until they closed it!

5 hours ago, Quoll said:

If you're with Barclays you may not be able to keep your UK bank account and there may be time when one comes in handy. I keep my account open but my bank knows I live in Australia and so far they're ok with that. So check to see if you can keep your UK bank account open as a foreign resident. 

HSBC is quite good for maintaining accounts in both countries - they are happy to send you UK statements etc to your Australian address, and you can transfer between UK and Australian accounts. You can even do some UK banking through an Australian branch and vice versa. They are not one of the "big 4" banks in Australia, but big enough at least in Sydney and Melbourne for everyday use.

A couple of things in no particular order:

- think about what you need to ship by airfreight and what can slowly go via sea freight.

- when you land, sort out private health insurance. Waiting periods are annoying, but some providers will be willing to waive waiting periods if you had an equivalent plan in the UK. Ask around.

- Australia has a protectionist racket on child car seats. Your EU-rated seats are probably not legal in Australia. You can take a taxi home from the airport without car seats, but you'll need Australian-rated ones for your own car.

- If you don't have a car waiting for you here and you aren't shipping one, think about ordering one now. Wait times are terrible.

You don't need a valid Australian passport to *enter* Australia if you in fact have citizenship under Australian law. You'd need to explain yourself at the Australian border but they cannot refuse to let you in: https://immi.homeaffairs.gov.au/entering-leaving-subsite/Pages/Entering/return-documents.aspx . This is the general legal position in most countries.

The tricky part is whether the airline would let you on the flight at the other end - usually they will want to see some proof of your citizenship or a visa. If the eVisa helps to get past that stage, then fine, but they need to be aware that technically it's not legally possible to hold a visa to visit Australia if you are a citizen.

I imagine that is a very healthy budget. You can even get a house in a reasonable part of Sydney on that budget, so I imagine you would get a palace in FNQ!

The market may be less competitive than Sydney. However, based on experience renting as a family in Sydney, I would suggest it's important to present yourself well and also exaggerating the length of time you intend to rent for. Suburban landlords tend to be very choosy about tenants: some don't like to rent to a family with kids, and o-one wants to have to find new tenants after only a year. Also,  if it's a property with a garden, committing to hiring a professional gardener can help beat out the competition. 

5 hours ago, Marisawright said:

Surely you'd be doing the weeding and hedge trimming whether the pool was there or not?  

Weeding around the pool is a bigger piece of work because you don't want toxic chemicals to wash into the pool, so it's organic herbicide (which has more limited effectiveness) and then physically removing the weeds. Plus, the rest of our yard is mostly lawn. I'm happy to mow, much more annoyed about weeding. If the pool wasn't there, I wouldn't have pavers in that area, and ordinary trees rather than privacy hedges.

Our house (Sydney) came with an outdoor pool. It came with "solar heating" (ie tubes that pumped the water onto the roof then back down), but same as @ramot's experience it doesn't seem to do much. More useful is the pool cover/blanket, which absorbs heat during daylight hours and helps prevent heat loss during the night. With all that, we get maybe 4 months of comfortable swimming temperature in a year. We've never had to refill the pool with water except after a major repair - in the last few (very wet) years the bigger problem was overspill after a long storm period. Luckily our pool is towards the lower end of the yard and the water spilled away from the house.

It's nice having your own pool in the warmer months - especially with young kids, it's a hassle getting them to the public pool and changed etc.

On the other hand, there is a huge amount of maintenance to do: weeding, hedge trimming, leaf sweeping, on top of actually keeping the pool clean and balanced, and repairing equipment. We outsource most of the work, but then the cost really adds up. The annual maintenance cost is easily in four digits, not counting the cost of electricity (which you can offset if you have solar panels), gardening, or replacing equipment when it breaks down.

It probably comes down to how often you'll use it. On the hottest days in January you might also be away on holiday or at the beach. The home pool is most handy I think in the shoulder season either side of January. You might also be able to extend the season a bit more using a solar-powered heat pump.

More important is the underlying causes for the changes. Why has internal emigration out of Sydney been so high? That's the kind of thing the government(s) should be thinking about.

You may be inadvertently on-trend. It's quite fashionable to hold kids back a year now - especially if they are within a month or two of the cut-off. In Sydney it's much more common in the affluent areas, as holding them back a year means paying for an extra year of childcare fees.

2 hours ago, Marisawright said:

To me, this sounds like a strange question. It's assuming that your kids will want to buy where you're settling.   Looking at friends my age in Sydney and Melbourne, I can't think of any whose kids bought in the same suburb or even close by.    Either they want to live in a trendy inner-city area, or when they're ready to start a family, they'll move to the outer suburbs where they can afford something.   

Quite a few of them are rentvestors (renting their home but they do own an investment property).  However even then, their rented home is in the "young" suburbs, not where their parents live.

Or (you could hope) they'll be able to buy somewhere nicer... it's not uncommon to hear stories here of migrant kids who find opportunities through the school system to get up the ladder and end up doing much better than their parents. Social mobility isn't quite dead.

May is too close to buy before you arrive - you'd have to rely on your UK jobs, income and credit history, which you won't be able to by the time the sale goes through even if you found something tomorrow. If you are buying after you arrive, think about probation (though depending on your occupation you might qualify for a occupation-specific product even while on probation), and also think about whether you will need time to establish your credit history. If you bank with a bank with operations in Australia, you might be able to get a loan from them more easily. Realistically, I'd say plan on renting for at least 9 months, and actually buying towards the end of the year or early next year.

If you've got a professional pack-ship-unpack service (which sounds like you do), you'd expect everything to be in the same condition as if you'd put them away in your own cupboard/wardrobe for however long it's taken them to get here. There were multiple layers of waterproof bubblewrapping for us.

Some IKEA furniture (which we'd only packed because there was excess allowance) broke en route - but insurance allows you a bit of time to make those claims. I think the movers on this end came back to collect the packaging from remaining boxes after a couple of weeks. Like others, it took us years to unpack all the boxes.

57 minutes ago, Nemesis said:

But equally, bringing toiletries etc that you are used to can make the first few weeks or months easier while you find replacement. Especially true if you have allergies or sensitivities - even finding decent washing liquid that one isn't allergic to isn't easy. The stuff from home can also make the transition easier, as you aren't suddenly pitchforked into a world where you are trying to buy stuff but don't know where to start. If people have the container space, bring stuff!

Agreed - gives you time to find something you are happy with here. We brought some hand soap for example. I wished I'd brought more tea bags - not English Breakfast, there's plenty of that here, but non-standard varieties, you can get a much wider variety in tea bag form in UK supermarkets. If you want the same variety here you often have to buy expensive loose leaf in tea shops.

13 minutes ago, Marisawright said:

Once again, depends where you're moving from/to.  Many migrants coming to Sydney or Melbourne would be moving into a place that's no bigger than the place they left in the UK.

We had this experience. Our London furniture was too big for our first place in Inner West Sydney.

10 hours ago, calNgary said:

To me money thrown away is paying for a container or movecube and never using half of what your brought because it doesn't suit / fit..

Fair enough. It's easy to forget that the calculus is different if you don't have a container worth of relocation allowance to fill.

This might be more helpful: here are some random examples of things we haven't been able to replace and/or have paid much more to get the same quality here:

- Tailor made suits/shirts

- Ties, cufflinks, silver jewellery

- Clothing from high street chains like GAP, Hobbs, etc

- British-made pottery - eg milk jugs

- French made knives, pots

I agree - bring everything you can. Especially if you have anything good quality and/or made in UK/Europe, whether that be clothes, linen, crockery or appliances. Unless it's an Australian or Chinese product, it will probably be more expensive and/or impossible to replace at the same quality.  If you bring appliances,  I suggest investing in multi extension leads on the UK end - then you only need one converter for multiple appliances. For the TV, you can get a set-top box here to get it working.

You are probably not in the market for nappies, but we found that it wasn't possible to get nappies of the same quality in supermarkets here. (We eventually found importers of the same brand of nappies, but made in Japan.)