Weird visa Question - 2005 Visa

[Burner200531]

Back in 2005, my grandparents were brought to Australia from Athens, Greece. They were given options, pay $500 or so and basically wait to receive a visa, could be weeks, months, years, no one knows. However, they were given an option were roughly each person would cost around $40k, including plane tickets and healthcare checks prior to coming into Australia and would only take around 1 month and they would get into Australia.

 

My family took that option. The brothers (4) payed in total $80k and they came from athens to Australia in less than 1 month total.

 

They were told that this $80k was to be put into a bank account, and this money (portion?, or total? idk) would be used as funds to pay any issues, such as surgeries, healthcare check ups, doctors etc.

They were told that this money would remain and not be lost if they didn't use it up.

 

My grandparents passed many years ago and this money has kinda been forgotten and has recently been brought back to thought. The brother who filled this visa, is unwilling to talk about it and pushes any thought about the money away, saying that the papers are lost, or some very random excuse. [My family has come to suspicion that perhaps he has took the money and not split it between the 4 brothers who each put 20k for their parents]

 

I (son of one of the brothers) am seeking to find any information about the visa back in 2005 that this might correspond to and perhaps any information about this money.

 

Would anyone know anything about this situation? Anything is helpful, I am trying to understand this further since I can't get any information within the family about it. :/

[Jon the Hat]

It sounds like they took the Contributory Parent visa route, which usually I believe involves an assurance of support bond AoS.  If you google these you will find our about them.  I think the bond is for 10 years and you can get some of it back if the parents haven't relied on Social security payments during that time.

[Amber Snowball]

45 minutes ago, Jon the Hat said:

It sounds like they took the Contributory Parent visa route, which usually I believe involves an assurance of support bond AoS.  If you google these you will find our about them.  I think the bond is for 10 years and you can get some of it back if the parents haven't relied on Social security payments during that time.

I’m not sure, it could well be but the AOS wouldn’t be $80000. My mum did her contributory parent visa not long after that and $10,000 bond is returned after 10 years.That was for 1 person. Maybe $14000 for 2? The rest of the money the government keeps .

The use of social security payments is quite specific to certain payments which to my mind were quite obscure. Or on my mum’s visa letter they were. 
 

@Burner200531  who signed the paperwork? As the bond would belong to whoever lodged it and opened the account in which it is held. But regardless I doubt you are getting $80000 back. Your uncle may well have cashed the bond in if he was the assurer and unless the other 3 brothers also signed the paperwork and opened the account, I’m unsure of how many assurers you could have back then, then I’m afraid the money is legally his, if not morally.

Maybe a chat with @Alan Collett  from Go Matilda might help as he would know the rules for whatever visas were available back then. 
 

This has happened before when parents pay their own bond, held in the name of the child as the assurer and the child then keeps the money, because the law says it is theirs.
 

Good luck.

[Jon the Hat]

3 minutes ago, Amber Snowball said:

I’m not sure, it could well be but the AOS wouldn’t be $80000. My mum did her contributory parent visa not long after that and $10,000 bond is returned after 10 years.That was for 1 person. Maybe $14000 for 2? The rest of the money the government keeps .

The use of social security payments is quite specific to certain payments which to my mind were quite obscure. Or on my mum’s visa letter they were. 
 

@Burner200531  who signed the paperwork? As the bond would belong to whoever lodged it and opened the account in which it is held. But regardless I doubt you are getting $80000 back. Your uncle may well have cashed the bond in if he was the assurer and unless the other 3 brothers also signed the paperwork and opened the account, I’m unsure of how many assurers you could have back then, then I’m afraid the money is legally his, if not morally.

Maybe a chat with @Alan Collett  from Go Matilda might help as he would know the rules for whatever visas were available back then. 
 

This has happened before when parents pay their own bond, held in the name of the child as the assurer and the child then keeps the money, because the law says it is theirs.
 

Good luck.

Indeed it seems even back then the contributory was bloody expensive and the bond would have been only part of the that $80k.  Ah 2005, the year when we came to the UK for a couple of years...

[Tulip1]

2 hours ago, Burner200531 said:

Back in 2005, my grandparents were brought to Australia from Athens, Greece. They were given options, pay $500 or so and basically wait to receive a visa, could be weeks, months, years, no one knows. However, they were given an option were roughly each person would cost around $40k, including plane tickets and healthcare checks prior to coming into Australia and would only take around 1 month and they would get into Australia.

 

My family took that option. The brothers (4) payed in total $80k and they came from athens to Australia in less than 1 month total.

 

They were told that this $80k was to be put into a bank account, and this money (portion?, or total? idk) would be used as funds to pay any issues, such as surgeries, healthcare check ups, doctors etc.

They were told that this money would remain and not be lost if they didn't use it up.

 

My grandparents passed many years ago and this money has kinda been forgotten and has recently been brought back to thought. The brother who filled this visa, is unwilling to talk about it and pushes any thought about the money away, saying that the papers are lost, or some very random excuse. [My family has come to suspicion that perhaps he has took the money and not split it between the 4 brothers who each put 20k for their parents]

 

I (son of one of the brothers) am seeking to find any information about the visa back in 2005 that this might correspond to and perhaps any information about this money.

 

Would anyone know anything about this situation? Anything is helpful, I am trying to understand this further since I can't get any information within the family about it.

I would imagine the baulk of the money would be to pay for the permanent visa which you’d never get back as any visa cost is non refundable.  There would likely be some money held on assurance in case they needed financial help from the state and if they did that money would be kept. That is still the case today. With a parent visa, there is a sponsor, usually one of the adult children living in Australia. They have to put this money, known as an assurance of support in a certain holding account (it goes to a centrelink account I believe) If no state money (benefits) has been needed for ten years it goes back to the sponsor who put it there.  That was probably the brother you mention that doesn’t wish to talk about it. Regardless to where that money originated from, it was handed over by the sponsor as it has to be.  The hope would be that at the end of the ten years the sponsor (adult child) would return it to their parents (if the parents put the money up in the first place) some children actually use their own money.  If the sponsor chooses not to there’s nothing anyone can do about it as it was them that paid it in and it’s in their name.  I can understand your frustration but if that brother was the sponsor then I doubt you have anywhere to go with this. 

[Marisawright]

@Tulip1, the money is supposed to be put up by the children using their own money. Sometimes (often?) the parents supply the funds but they’re not supposed to. That’s why the system is set up to return the money to the children.

[Tulip1]

42 minutes ago, Marisawright said:

@Tulip1, the money is supposed to be put up by the children using their own money. Sometimes (often?) the parents supply the funds but they’re not supposed to. That’s why the system is set up to return the money to the children.

I know it’s supposed to come from the children but I bet it originates from the parents much of the time.  It would be a big ask on many children to come up with $20k because their parents wanted to move out there to live.  I’ve no idea on the percentage but I’d be surprised if most of the parents children, often bringing up their own children at that time have thousands of dollars available to put away for ten years, with the possibility of never getting it back. I’m sure there’s a lot of transfers from the parents accounts to the kids to cover that payment ‘they’ have to make.

[Amber Snowball]

26 minutes ago, Tulip1 said:

I know it’s supposed to come from the children but I bet it originates from the parents much of the time.  It would be a big ask on many children to come up with $20k because their parents wanted to move out there to live.  I’ve no idea on the percentage but I’d be surprised if most of the parents children, often bringing up their own children at that time have thousands of dollars available to put away for ten years, with the possibility of never getting it back. I’m sure there’s a lot of transfers from the parents accounts to the kids to cover that payment ‘they’ have to make.

I don’t know if there is an actual rule that says where the money has to come from. The assurer can be different to the sponsor so doesn’t have to be the child. You’re right, lots of parents pay the aos. It’s a risk but most wouldn’t expect their children to rob them I suppose. My mum put the money up for her aos.

Not sure what the rules are now but like I said the Centrelink payments they listed on my mum’s aos were quite obscure I thought, so I would expect most to get their aos back. 

[Marisawright]

Double post

Edited December 2, 2020 by Marisawright

[Marisawright]

49 minutes ago, Tulip1 said:

I know it’s supposed to come from the children but I bet it originates from the parents much of the time.  It would be a big ask on many children to come up with $20k because their parents wanted to move out there to live. 

I'm sure you are right, @Tulip1.  However I think that's the point.  I think the original idea of the visa was for migrants who had "made good" in Australia and could afford to bring their parents to Australia, to look after them in their old age.  

I'm sure that's still the case for some migrants from developing countries, but for UK parents, it seems more usual for the parents to be driving the move. However the setup is still based on the idea that it's the children who are well off, not the parents. 

@Amber Snowball, not sure of the rules but I know the parents can't be the assurer.   I think the reason someone else can be nominated is that the children could borrow money from someone to pay the bond, and then the bond would be repaid straight to the lender at the end.  

Edited December 2, 2020 by Marisawright

[Amber Snowball]

9 hours ago, Marisawright said:

I'm sure you are right, @Tulip1.  However I think that's the point.  I think the original idea of the visa was for migrants who had "made good" in Australia and could afford to bring their parents to Australia, to look after them in their old age.  

I'm sure that's still the case for some migrants from developing countries, but for UK parents, it seems more usual for the parents to be driving the move. However the setup is still based on the idea that it's the children who are well off, not the parents. 

@Amber Snowball, not sure of the rules but I know the parents can't be the assurer.   I think the reason someone else can be nominated is that the children could borrow money from someone to pay the bond, and then the bond would be repaid straight to the lender at the end.  

Hi, yes you are right the parents can’t be named as the assurer but often put the money up and it is held in the assurers name. It sounds like this has happened for the OP. 3 siblings put the money up but it has been held in one name and they have claimed it back. Legally it belongs to the named assurer regardless of who supplied the money.

There have been a couple of discussions on here during my time on the forum about people getting a family friend to be the named assurer but they put the money up and then the assurer won’t return the money when it is released. Risky strategy, even with family.

Alternatively it could be that the OP’s uncle has lost the paperwork and no one claimed the bond back. Centrelink write to the assurer and the Commonwealth Bank wrote to me as well I think to alert me that I could now claim the bond back. Genuinely don’t know what happened in the OP’s case or if there was a different visa they were on that had different rules at that time. We applied for my mum’s 143 in 2007 I think and there wasn’t much choice of visas then. 

[Burner200531]

Is there a possibility that the bond was more than $14000? 

[Burner200531]

Also, for the assurance of support, they lived with my uncle for their entire time being here (my grandparents), what is the assurance of support money used for? Does the government use this money for paying surgeries, doctor appointment etc? Or is this not taken from the money and used to guarantee something else

[Marisawright]

51 minutes ago, Burner200531 said:

Also, for the assurance of support, they lived with my uncle for their entire time being here (my grandparents), what is the assurance of support money used for? Does the government use this money for paying surgeries, doctor appointment etc? Or is this not taken from the money and used to guarantee something else

The Assurance of Support money is not used for anything.   It's a safeguard, in case they end up a burden on the state.   After 10 years, the whole amount is repaid to the person who lodged it.  

To be honest, it sounds as though someone conned your grandparents.  There is no visa where you pay money upfront and it is then used to pay for health costs. Such a visa never existed.  

[Amber Snowball]

4 hours ago, Burner200531 said:

Also, for the assurance of support, they lived with my uncle for their entire time being here (my grandparents), what is the assurance of support money used for? Does the government use this money for paying surgeries, doctor appointment etc? Or is this not taken from the money and used to guarantee something else

There is a list of very specific Centrelink payments that the AOS covers, or there was. Think one of them was a widows payment or something. All the payments would have to be applied for so they couldn’t have gotten them by accident and not known. If they had permanent residency they would access Medicare the same as any other Australian.

Is the uncle they lived with the uncle who claims the paperwork is lost? Because if it is he has probably seen that money as payment for them living with him, maybe????
 

The bond wouldn’t have been much more than $14000 I don’t think. 
You may just have to accept the money is gone. The large fees of 10s of thousands of dollars are the visa fees and they don’t get refunded/returned. Centrelink will only deal with the assurer named on the paperwork so I don’t hold out much hope I’m afraid.

[Amber Snowball]

Just had another thought.

The interest on the bond was paid into my everyday bank account every 6 months, it wasn’t added to the bond account as that had to remain at the nominated bond amount.

Who was getting that interest whilst the bond was live? If the bond is still there that interest would still be be paying paid. Have your dad or uncles moved address since the bond was lodged in 2005? If not Centrelink and or the commonwealth would have contacted them at the end of the bond and also the commonwealth bank wrote to me as the bond needed renewing, because bizarrely the bond ran for 2.5 years at a time. Also I received statements of interest paid for tax purposes each year.

@Burner200531 not sure if any of this gives you any avenues of investigation.