Patcat Posted May 12, 2020 Share Posted May 12, 2020 I am a 489 visa holder who has.been offered a full-time work-from-home position. I was wondering if I should take this opportunity or not as the company is based out in Sydney. I will be trained and perform my responsibilities here in my regional area and am not at any point during my employment required or asked to go to Sydney as stated in the contract given to me. Does anyone know if this will negatively impact my 887 application in the future? I've tried to look for an answer to this but could not get a clear cut response. So many gray areas. Any clarification will help. Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ausvisitor Posted May 12, 2020 Share Posted May 12, 2020 I don't know for sure, but i would expect it depends what your contract actually says. If it says you are employed from home to do a task then you are probably totally ok. If it says you are employed in George St, Sydney but allowed to work from home then I would say you are employed in a city and therefore aren't meeting your work obligations in regard to location. It's where you are "contractually employed" that matters not where you actually provide the activity (For instance lots of trades and business consultants work all over the country on assignments, this is always OK so long as your actual employment - the place you go to if you aren't on assignment is in a permissible location) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Patcat Posted May 13, 2020 Author Share Posted May 13, 2020 Thank you for your reply. Just to give more context, this company in Sydney is employing me as part of their customer service crew and will work out of their online portal. Their customers are not necessarily limited to Sydney though as they are from all over Aus. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ausvisitor Posted May 13, 2020 Share Posted May 13, 2020 (edited) 7 hours ago, Patcat said: Thank you for your reply. Just to give more context, this company in Sydney is employing me as part of their customer service crew and will work out of their online portal. Their customers are not necessarily limited to Sydney though as they are from all over Aus. The important part is where your contract says you are employed from. If it says employed in the Sydney office but allowed to work from home then you are still employed in Sydney. If it says you are employed by the company and your work base is "your house" then you are employed in your regional area. It's not where you do the work or where the person you work for that matters, it is where your contract says you are employed from that counts (as that is the only bit your employer could enforce). Only you know what the contract says (unless you post it online which I'd suggest you probably don't want to do for various good reasons) I'd also run this past the migration agent that helped you submit your original visa to get their view as they will be much more up to date with what the IMMI dept will accept, if you didn't use one I'd suggest Contracting one of the one's on here @paulhand @wrussell @Alan Collett to give you a specific review of this query. I'd guess its no more than a couple of hours for them to give you a view as to whether or not you should take the role (so at most a couple of hundred dollars) and you will save so much more (both in terms of peace of mind and wasted fees in the future) by getting a professionals advice now Edited May 13, 2020 by Ausvisitor Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Patcat Posted May 13, 2020 Author Share Posted May 13, 2020 (edited) Thank you. This is great advise. Clears a lot of things up. I guess this part of the contract is safe to share: "You will be stationed physically to work from Bomaderry NSW, however work remotely online with our Customer Service team." Edited May 13, 2020 by Patcat Add extra info Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ausvisitor Posted May 13, 2020 Share Posted May 13, 2020 Assuming Bomaderry is classed as a rural location (which at 156K from Sydney Is suspect it is) then it should be fine; they are specifically saying they expect you to work from that location. So that means you'll be buying coffee/snacks in that marketplace and spending money on utilities etc in that town as well Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CamillaGat Posted August 4, 2020 Share Posted August 4, 2020 Hi I ran past this post as I’m having the same concern. I have been grabted with visa 489 late last year. My current employer in Singapore has an office in Sydney and has allowed me to work from home in Adelaide. However as our head office is in Sydney, I might be asked to visit the ehad office once a month for meetings. Is there a certain limit in number of days per year that I’m allowed to visit our head office there? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ausvisitor Posted August 4, 2020 Share Posted August 4, 2020 4 hours ago, CamillaGat said: Hi I ran past this post as I’m having the same concern. I have been grabted with visa 489 late last year. My current employer in Singapore has an office in Sydney and has allowed me to work from home in Adelaide. However as our head office is in Sydney, I might be asked to visit the ehad office once a month for meetings. Is there a certain limit in number of days per year that I’m allowed to visit our head office there? Well Adelaide is almost certainly not going to be a rural area so I guess it doesn't matter as it is the same deal as working in Sydney in terms of being based and working in a rural area. Where is it that your employer says you are employed from in your contract, that is all that matters. If it is a city (or even Singapore) then you aren't doing a rural job, you are doing a city job from a different location Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulhand Posted August 5, 2020 Share Posted August 5, 2020 22 hours ago, Ausvisitor said: Well Adelaide is almost certainly not going to be a rural area so I guess it doesn't matter as it is the same deal as working in Sydney in terms of being based and working in a rural area. Purely addressing this point (not the remote working): Adelaide is a ‘designated regional area’ in this context. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ausvisitor Posted August 5, 2020 Share Posted August 5, 2020 1 hour ago, paulhand said: Purely addressing this point (not the remote working): Adelaide is a ‘designated regional area’ in this context. Well I learned something new today, I did do a quick Google to see if Adelaide was regional or not - and obviously the information I got back was incorrect (or I read it incorrectly) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulhand Posted August 5, 2020 Share Posted August 5, 2020 1 hour ago, Ausvisitor said: Well I learned something new today, I did do a quick Google to see if Adelaide was regional or not - and obviously the information I got back was incorrect (or I read it incorrectly) I think the misunderstanding comes from the fact that they classify the designated regional area into sub-categories. The full rundown is here: https://immi.homeaffairs.gov.au/visas/working-in-australia/regional-migration/eligible-regional-areas Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kev9 Posted July 29, 2021 Share Posted July 29, 2021 On 12/05/2020 at 21:11, Patcat said: I am a 489 visa holder who has.been offered a full-time work-from-home position. I was wondering if I should take this opportunity or not as the company is based out in Sydney. I will be trained and perform my responsibilities here in my regional area and am not at any point during my employment required or asked to go to Sydney as stated in the contract given to me. Does anyone know if this will negatively impact my 887 application in the future? I've tried to look for an answer to this but could not get a clear cut response. So many gray areas. Any clarification will help. Thanks. Hi @Patcat Can you please update on your situation? I am in exact same situation like yours. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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