Advice or experience required on visa changes

[Guest Garyo]

Hi All

 

We are new to this site but hope that someone may be able to advise us. We have applied for a 136 visa before the September changes, so I guess it is now a 175 which will be awarded. However we need to invest the $100k for the 5 points which has now been withdrawn leaving us in difficulty.

 

Has anyone heard anything positive about options or decisions???

 

Secondly, we believe we may have to now go State Sponsored for a 176 sponsored visa. Has anyone changed subclass of visa part way through the application or will we have to reapply from scratch.??

 

Any information on any of the above will help me sleep sounder over Christmas.

 

Thanks

 

Gary

[Selah]

Dear Gary,

 

We have applied for a 138 sponsored visa and also rely on the 5 point investment. We couldn't transfer to another visa as our jobs are not on the list for sponsorship for any state. The MIA has issued an urgent letter to the minister of immigration re: the bind that many appicants are in. Many are farther down the road than we are - ie have sold houses and paid for medicals, etc. Our agent has told us to sit tight as she feels a resolution may be found. You will notice that DIAC has not made any official statement regarding the matter. It's only known that the individual territories/states have pulled out ie there is no place that accepts the investment not that immigration is saying it can no longer be made. The backlog of August applications is so great that I don't think DIAC even know how many applications are affected by this problem. However, there are government bonds lodged for other types of visas and I think the hope is that the 5 point investment will go there. To my knowledge there has been no response yet to the letter but as I said others are fighting the cause much farther down the road. If you wish a copy of the letter sent to DIAC please PM me your email address and I'll forward it on. We went from devastated last month to optimistic that a solution will be found. The immigration agents on sight will be more forthcoming with info I'm sure.

 

Liz