Our joint visa cost so far

[Lisababy]

Hi everyone,

 

Just thought I'd share my current costs of our current (granted) visa. When we were researching the cost and processes this is one area that generates a lot of interest so here is ours for anyone wanting to know or interested if you're considering starting the application process. I am a nurse and needed both ANMAC and AHPRA.

 

Current visa applied for was a joint 189;

IELTS (booked 11 March 14, sat 24 April 14) - £140

University paperwork for the skills assessment (applied 25 April 14) - £50 + £5 solicitor fee

ANMAC skills assessment (23 May 14) - £479 (I had a diploma at this point but was recently changed to you needing a degree for the ANMAC assessment)

Solicitor document verification fee - £10

ANMAC postage - £10.05

University transcript and course details - £115

Certified docs for visa - £20

Joint visa application fee - £2916

Joint medicals - £660

Joint police checks - £90

AHPRA application cost - £270 (£15 postage fee)

International police check - £90

LJMU course documents - £115 (LJMU - Liverpool John Moore's University - I didn't have these sent to AHPRA when I applied for my skills assessment which I should have done so had to pay again)

UoC course documents - £10 (University of Chestrr where I completed the degree top up)

Notary fee - £240 + £120 + £12.50 postage x2 (They asked for further documents to be verified although on the AHPRA website it didn't state that certain things needed verifying)

 

Total cost (not including visa activation trip last December)

 

£5365.05 :arghh:

[Beaty]

 

£5365.05 :arghh:

 

That's nuts!

 

B

[Quinkla]

I don't want to worry you, but this is a drop in the bucket when you also add in costs of relocating and the cost of leaving the UK NHS pension scheme and joining an Australian superannuation scheme in mid-life.

[rammygirl]

Yeah and that's for a couple. Ours was about that just for the visa application. Four adult fees!

[Lisababy]

I don't want to worry you, but this is a drop in the bucket when you also add in costs of relocating and the cost of leaving the UK NHS pension scheme and joining an Australian superannuation scheme in mid-life.

 

I only added this for people who may have wanted to use it as a guide as I would have found this useful pre application. I know that the relocation costs are going to be much larger but in the grand scheme of things, hopefully will be worth it. We're 33 and 30 so the cost of leaving the NHS pension shouldn't affect us as much.

 

We can only wait and see.

[Beaty]

I think our move will come in at close to EUR 30 K including pre-arrival reccie etc

 

I'm looking at the bigger picture, though.

 

B

[Quinkla]

I only added this for people who may have wanted to use it as a guide as I would have found this useful pre application. I know that the relocation costs are going to be much larger but in the grand scheme of things, hopefully will be worth it. We're 33 and 30 so the cost of leaving the NHS pension shouldn't affect us as much.

 

We can only wait and see.

If your NHS pension is a final salary scheme, then you would lose out by the fact that at 33, you may not have reached the apex of your career. Thus, you would preserve your entitlement to 10 (or however many) years salary based on an indexation of your current salary, but if you stayed in the NHS and got promoted to a job paying twice as much, your accrued pension would be worth twice as much. If it isn’t a final salary scheme then it probably doesn’t make much difference.

 

But the real kicker is joining an Australian superannuation scheme late. It might sound like nothing, but missing ten years means more than just losing ten years of contributions, it also means losing the investment potential of those contributions over time. So if, let’s assume, you get pension contributions of $7,000 a year (reasonable based on an average wage) and earn 4% above the rate of inflation once taxes and fees are taken into account, then if you start work at age 20 and retire at age 67 you would have a pension pot of $890k. But if you start contributing at age 34 you would have only $440k. It’s a big difference.