457 - PR - Quickest Route

[EJMac]

Hi, I did a post on this before but it was a bit vague, I've been doing more research  and it would be great if anyone with any experience of getting PR could help as seem to go in circles on the govt websites.

I have been on  a 457 for nearly 2 years, I am keen to get PR and I believe I have the following options:

- Spousal

- Works sponsored

- Skilled

I could have got the spouse or skilled one from the UK before I came here but we needed to get out here quickly and the 457 only took a couple of days, however I am keen now to convert to PR so we can hopefully get a mortgage next year.

I keep getting advised that after 2 years I can apply for work sponsored PR? Does anyone know if the 2 year timeline is still significant? My company have intimated they will sponsor and they are an approved employer so I believe can fasttrack visas (I understand this is why the 457 was so quick) I would be keen for my company to pay but I will be tied to the job for a while if I did that. My other options are skilled as my job is on the list or spousal as my partner is Aussie, does anyone know which of these two is cheaper and quicker? If anyone has been through the process how long did it take and what sort of cost? I am happy to do the application without an agent as should be a straightforward case.

Thanks in advance for your help.

[MaggieMay24]

Being an accredited sponsor helps the time for processing a 457 but no impact on the processing of a 186.  Skilled is probably cheaper than a partner visa and the cost would depend on the skills assessment since each assessor will have different fees.

Any visa approach will have advantages and disadvantages.

- employer sponsored requires the employer to agree for sponsoring and the cost/timing is not cheap or easy.  There's also no requirement for the employer to carry the cost so if they pass that to you, you're looking at around $10K and around a year for processing nomination/visa when lodged together.

- skilled requires you to get an invitation so it depends on your occupation and how many points you can claim to determine if/when you might get an invitation to apply.  It's probably the cheapest one at around $5K-ish and around 9-12 months for processing.

- partner requires you to gather sufficient evidence of your relationship (joined finances, joined household, joined social lives, etc.).  Depending how long you and your spouse/partner have been in a relationship, you may be able to bypass the temporary visa stage and go straight to PR (3 years married/de facto or 2 years+child).  Cost is about $8K and takes around a year for processing.

Given you have several options, you'd be well off arranging a consultation with a registered migration agent so they can give you their professional (vs. my amateur) opinion on the pros/cons of each approach.

[Marisawright]

Spousal is the most certain, if you have strong evidence. Large numbers of partner visas are refused but that’s because so many are fraudulent or provide inadequate evidence. It can be a long queue, but it’s strictly first come first served, and you’ll get a bridging visa if the 457 runs out before it comes through.

With the skilled options, you can still fail even if you’ve got all the qualifications and experience, because it’s a competition, not a queue - applicants with the highest points get cherrypicked and the rest ignored, so it’s possible to have a long wait or even miss out altogether 

Edited May 15, 2019 by Marisawright

[EJMac]

1 hour ago, MaggieMay24 said:

Being an accredited sponsor helps the time for processing a 457 but no impact on the processing of a 186.  Skilled is probably cheaper than a partner visa and the cost would depend on the skills assessment since each assessor will have different fees.

Any visa approach will have advantages and disadvantages.

- employer sponsored requires the employer to agree for sponsoring and the cost/timing is not cheap or easy.  There's also no requirement for the employer to carry the cost so if they pass that to you, you're looking at around $10K and around a year for processing nomination/visa when lodged together.

- skilled requires you to get an invitation so it depends on your occupation and how many points you can claim to determine if/when you might get an invitation to apply.  It's probably the cheapest one at around $5K-ish and around 9-12 months for processing.

- partner requires you to gather sufficient evidence of your relationship (joined finances, joined household, joined social lives, etc.).  Depending how long you and your spouse/partner have been in a relationship, you may be able to bypass the temporary visa stage and go straight to PR (3 years married/de facto or 2 years+child).  Cost is about $8K and takes around a year for processing.

Given you have several options, you'd be well off arranging a consultation with a registered migration agent so they can give you their professional (vs. my amateur) opinion on the pros/cons of each approach.

Thanks MaggieMay - this is really useful.

My employer has confirmed that they will carry the costs but I will be expected to work for 4 years to pay back, if I leave earlier there is % discounted on sliding scale.

Interesting that the accredited sponsor makes no difference, i hoped it would. I'm pretty confident with the skilled visa as I started going down this route when we first looked into coming over, but we decided to have our baby in Aus over UK so had a tight time limit so went 457 as it was quicker. Partner should be fine as we have baby/lived together in UK for a few years etc. 

Thanks again really useful, I'm pretty dubious about migration agents as they seem to just regurgitate info from gov websites and when we started doing the forms before they were really straighforward, I think they try to make things sound complicated to justfiy their fee but I will but will refer if necessary.

Thanks

[Ausvisitor]

I agree with you somewhat that the forms aren't rocket science, but that's only until they become so...

What I mean by that is that the rules change frequently and if you hit a snag (like say technically two years of your experience aren't closely related to your occupation but you believe they are) in these cases an agent is worth their weight in Gold.

We use one simply because the time I'd waste on doing the process is far more than the amount of money I could make in the same time if I did my job and not apply for a visa, add in to that the reduction of stress and it's a simple choice. 

 

On a side note I think it's a bit cheeky to disparage agents like this whilst asking for advice on a forum that has essentially collated it's knowledge from people who have paid for agents sharing what they know or agents providing guidance for free. Without agents most of the advice on this forum wouldn't exist, so whilst they might seem a little unnecessary because you can get the info from a POI when you falter, if everyone did that the agents would be out of the work and the knowledge on here would go stale very quickly