The Brand New PIO Parents Visa thread

[Fisher1]

Hi guys,

 

Sorry, I've got one more question. It says on the centrelink letter that I have to go back to the centrelink office to submit all the paperwork from the bank. Can I do that via the centrelink app? Sorry, just trying to avoid going back to centrelink as I work full time. Yes @Fisher1, centrelink staff seem to be a bit of a hit and miss. Some are helpful while some others aren't

 

Sorry can't help with that = don't know.

[ljwalvin]

Thats no problems. Thanks anyway Fisher1!

[Bear2015]

Thats no problems. Thanks anyway Fisher1!

 

Hi Ljwalvin,

 

Can you pls let me know what is the lodgement date of your/your parents application. Just curious.

[Nita16]

Hi Fisher 1,

I would also like to thank you for your excellent post. My husband and I have also decided to go it alone without an agent. After reading the posts I was beginning to worry that we had made the wrong decision but you are quite right, everyone's reasons are different . We do just as you say, read everything several times and even read it aloud, that often helps when you can't decide what something means! I'm the patient one and my husband is good with details so it's a good combination ( so far:)), fingers crossed).

As you said everyone is different. Good luck to all.

Cheers,

Nita

[ljwalvin]

Hi Bear2015,

 

My mum lodged on 9/7/2014. Documents were requested on 20/10/16. Centrelink AOS submitted on 24/10/16. Centrelink's a pain in the bum to deal with..Never expected them to be this slow.

[Guest geordie joe]

Hi guys,

 

Sorry, I've got one more question. It says on the centrelink letter that I have to go back to the centrelink office to submit all the paperwork from the bank. Can I do that via the centrelink app? Sorry, just trying to avoid going back to centrelink as I work full time. Yes @Fisher1, centrelink staff seem to be a bit of a hit and miss. Some are helpful while some others aren't

 

Sorry, not sure but I understand your reluctance, my daughter went into Centrelink to submit her bank paperwork in December. She followed it up today as she still hasn't heard anything, after waiting on hold for 2 hrs she finally spoke to someone who kindly pointed out due to the high number of parent applications it's taking around 6 weeks to lodge and complete the AOS. She was a little surprised when my daughter pointed out it's been 18 weeks today when she lodged the application, but the good news is we have been made a priority case (the fifth time we have heard this). Sorry if I sound rather negative about this whole experience but I'm sick of dealing with a total lack of ownership from this department.

 

Joe

[juliew1499]

Sorry, not sure but I understand your reluctance, my daughter went into Centrelink to submit her bank paperwork in December. She followed it up today as she still hasn't heard anything, after waiting on hold for 2 hrs she finally spoke to someone who kindly pointed out due to the high number of parent applications it's taking around 6 weeks to lodge and complete the AOS. She was a little surprised when my daughter pointed out it's been 18 weeks today when she lodged the application, but the good news is we have been made a priority case (the fifth time we have heard this). Sorry if I sound rather negative about this whole experience but I'm sick of dealing with a total lack of ownership from this department.

 

Joe

Hi Joe

Hang on in there Joe it will happen....I thought we had it bad having to wait 12 weeks for ours!Centrelink are useless we applied for our Medicare cards at beginning of December, still haven,t got them. I know how you feel, i turned into a complete wreck during the AOS process, we too were prioritised several times, it seems to be something they say to keep us all quiet. After waiting all these years for the visa to be processed the AOS experience is awful and for me spoilt what should have been an exciting last few weeks. You do get over it eventually. Good luck and hope you hear very soon.

Julie

[ljwalvin]

Hi Juliew1499,

 

I agree with you. How hard can it be to look at a few pieces of paper and approve my application? I deal with Medicare on a professional level quite often and the amount of mistakes they make and the people they hire to answer the phone is a joke at best

[Fisher1]

Hi Juliew1499,

 

I agree with you. How hard can it be to look at a few pieces of paper and approve my application? I deal with Medicare on a professional level quite often and the amount of mistakes they make and the people they hire to answer the phone is a joke at best

 

My daughter found dealing with centrelink very frustrating. They held up the confirmation of assurance of support because she was unable to produce a pay slip for a specific month, despite knowing that she was on maternity leave and having written confirmation of the date of her return to work. They agreed to accept a statement from her accountant however! Had they processed the assurance of support in good time, we would have had our visa issued while we were en route for Australia for a holiday, validated it on arrival and thus avoided paying yet another £1000 for an enjoyable but entirely unnecessary week in Auckland.

 

The only answer is to grit your teeth and press on, but how infuriating it is when you are already paying so much for your visa. Hope it won't be too much longer for you to wait.

[Bear2015]

Hi ljwalwin,

Thanks for posting the details. Hang in there , I have heard this is the most frustrating time in the waiting room. Hope your mums turn will come soon. Good luck.

[Tien Duong]

Hi Joe

Hang on in there Joe it will happen....I thought we had it bad having to wait 12 weeks for ours!Centrelink are useless we applied for our Medicare cards at beginning of December, still haven,t got them. I know how you feel, i turned into a complete wreck during the AOS process, we too were prioritised several times, it seems to be something they say to keep us all quiet. After waiting all these years for the visa to be processed the AOS experience is awful and for me spoilt what should have been an exciting last few weeks. You do get over it eventually. Good luck and hope you hear very soon.

Julie

Hi Julie, they said it would take 4-5 weeks for medicare card to arrive. We got ours in only 10 days thou. Maybe they just depend on different location

[Catlady2014]

Unfortunately, no progress again this week - I think that's about 4 weeks running?

 

OFFSHORE APPLICANTS (subclass 143/173)

 

When your application is allocated to an assessing officer, you or your authorised contact may be asked to provide more documents, including but not limited to, Assurance of Support (subclass 143 only), police certificates and health clearances to finalise your application.

 

We are currently assessing applications lodged up to and including 30 July 2014.

[Pertenhall]

Unfortunately, no progress again this week - I think that's about 4 weeks running?

 

OFFSHORE APPLICANTS (subclass 143/173)

 

When your application is allocated to an assessing officer, you or your authorised contact may be asked to provide more documents, including but not limited to, Assurance of Support (subclass 143 only), police certificates and health clearances to finalise your application.

 

We are currently assessing applications lodged up to and including 30 July 2014.

 

That means there has only been an advance of 2 weeks in the last 6 weeks. It was 16 Jul 14 on 25 Nov 15. There we were hoping that things would speed up now that the May/June 2014 applications were done with. I know we have had Christmas and New Year to contend with, but 2 weeks in 6 is very depressing. Zee

[Catlady2014]

That means there has only been an advance of 2 weeks in the last 6 weeks. It was 16 Jul 14 on 25 Nov 15. There we were hoping that things would speed up now that the May/June 2014 applications were done with. I know we have had Christmas and New Year to contend with, but 2 weeks in 6 is very depressing. Zee

 

Yes, it is very depressing. And meanwhile, they are still saying that processing is in excess of 24 months, while it's actually closer to 29/30 months.

[fringe123]

Hi all,

need some help with a question on the 173 application for my mom, is it mandatory to provide evidence of residence for all children? I have only one brother who is living outside Australia and I have no contacts of him and don't know where he lives. What should I do to fill his residence details section? Your help is much appreciated.

 

Thank you.

[Fisher1]

Hi all,

need some help with a question on the 173 application for my mom, is it mandatory to provide evidence of residence for all children? I have only one brother who is living outside Australia and I have no contacts of him and don't know where he lives. What should I do to fill his residence details section? Your help is much appreciated.

 

Thank you.

There were relatives in our family who we had lost contact with but we got round it by phoning a relative who had still had contact and getting their details from him. There is a site that gives (rather worryingly) addresses of anyone in the UK on payment of a fee, but you would need to be fairly sure it was the right Fred Bloggs at that address ... I have also tracked details of relatives dates of birth and death using ancestry.com which you can access for nothing at the local library in the UK or on payment of a fee. It's a pain, hope you sort it out. As a last resort I would try contacting the PVC for advice.

[fringe123]

There were relatives in our family who we had lost contact with but we got round it by phoning a relative who had still had contact and getting their details from him. There is a site that gives (rather worryingly) addresses of anyone in the UK on payment of a fee, but you would need to be fairly sure it was the right Fred Bloggs at that address ... I have also tracked details of relatives dates of birth and death using ancestry.com which you can access for nothing at the local library in the UK or on payment of a fee. It's a pain, hope you sort it out. As a last resort I would try contacting the PVC for advice.

Thanks for the reply. My problem is even if i find him he might not give me his passport or residential evidence as we are not in good terms. Do you know what other documents we can provide?

[Alan Collett]

Thanks for the reply. My problem is even if i find him he might not give me his passport or residential evidence as we are not in good terms. Do you know what other documents we can provide?

 

 

It is circumstances such as this where having a registered migration agent supporting the visa application exercise can help - both practically, and in de-stressing the process.

 

Best regards.

[Freesia]

In the guidelines for the Parent visa, it says something like if whereabouts are unknown, the place of residence will default to wherever he was generally known to live ie country of birth. So you just inform them you have no idea of his wherabouts & if they want to check further with you, they'll ask.

[Fisher1]

Thanks for the reply. My problem is even if i find him he might not give me his passport or residential evidence as we are not in good terms. Do you know what other documents we can provide?

 

Hi again

 

Are you sure you need to provide evidence? I'm not advocating you do anything silly and if you can't solve this by yourself then a migration agent might be the answer - but when we tracked down the missing half- siblings in our family, we entered their addresses on the form but did not have to provide evidence that they were there. Obviously you have to be 100% certain you have the right person or you could get into a right mess.

[Nita16]

Hi everyone,

thanks Catlady and Peternhall for the update on the processing dates., depressing though it was, it's better to know. With this in mind I have a question, should we ( husband and I) want to travel to Australia whilst our visa is being processed,;

1. What is the process.

2. Do we have to inform immigration/ parent visa centre

3. Which visa do we apply for. Previously we have travelled on the basic electronic tourist visa, can we still apply for this visa as we don't plan on staying long.

We have applied for the 143 in June 2016.

Hang in there Fringe123 I'm sure you will find a way in the fog, there are some very helpful people in this forum. I have found that most of the answers are somewhere in the guidelines but you have to find them. As this is quite a difficult situation maybe asking a migration agent for peace of mind, is not a bad idea.

Cheers

Nita

[fringe123]

In the guidelines for the Parent visa, it says something like if whereabouts are unknown, the place of residence will default to wherever he was generally known to live ie country of birth. So you just inform them you have no idea of his wherabouts & if they want to check further with you, they'll ask.

@Freesia: Thank you . This is really helpful and made my day. :smile:

 

@ Alan: Thank you.I know its good to use an Agent. But unfortunately things got more complected during my PR process. My agent did so many mistakes during the process so we had to submit a new EOI and it took extra few months to get the PR. I know there are good agents but that was just my bad luck.

@Fisher1: Thank you for this information.Looks like i got it wrong. I saw this in the checklist(in the application form ) and thought its mandatory.

Evidence of where all your children reside (eg. passport,citizenship or residence certificate).

I think this is optional as you already got your visa without submitting those evidence.

@Nita: Thank you for your support. yes this forum looks really helpful.

[fringe123]

In the guidelines for the Parent visa, it says something like if whereabouts are unknown, the place of residence will default to wherever he was generally known to live ie country of birth. So you just inform them you have no idea of his wherabouts & if they want to check further with you, they'll ask.

@Freesia: Thank you . This is really helpful and made my day. :smile:

@Alan Collett: Thank you.I know its good to use an Agent. But unfortunately things got more complected during my PR process. My agent did so many mistakes during the process so we had to submit a new EOI and it took extra few months to get the PR. I know there are good agents but that was just my bad luck.

@Fisher1: Thank you for this information.Looks like i got it wrong. I saw this in the checklist(in the application form ) and thought its mandatory.

Evidence of where all your children reside (eg. passport,citizenship or residence certificate).

I think this is optional as you already got your visa without submitting those evidence.

@Nita16: Thank you for your support. yes this forum looks really helpful.

[ljwalvin]

Hi guys,

 

Just wanted to let you know that I've lodged the bond with commonwealth bank and it's not really possible to waive the establishment fee. However, there was also a fee that you get charged every 6 months or so of 1.65%?? I didn't know about that! Also, I'm not sure if it's possible but ask for a centrelink Customer Reference Number (CRN) and you can upload all the documents with the centrelink App. Makes life much easier so you don't have to go into the centrelink office and be treated like a criminal.

[Alan Collett]

@Freesia: Thank you . This is really helpful and made my day. :smile:

@Alan Collett: Thank you.I know its good to use an Agent. But unfortunately things got more complected during my PR process. My agent did so many mistakes during the process so we had to submit a new EOI and it took extra few months to get the PR. I know there are good agents but that was just my bad luck.

@Fisher1: Thank you for this information.Looks like i got it wrong. I saw this in the checklist(in the application form ) and thought its mandatory.

Evidence of where all your children reside (eg. passport,citizenship or residence certificate).

I think this is optional as you already got your visa without submitting those evidence.

@Nita16: Thank you for your support. yes this forum looks really helpful.

 

 

Sorry to hear about your bad experience with a migration agent.

 

Not sure this is a reason not to engage a good agent with this visa application, but it is your call!

 

Best regards.