Ken

No need to be concerned about being in breach of contract when the property is in negative equity as it would not be in the lender's interest to cancel the contract.

They have however also said that their non-stop flights from London are going to operate out of Darwin not Perth due to the WA government saying they are going to keep the border closed even when vaccinations hit 80%.

I don't really know the reason, but logically a 16 year old can't have much background to check and so can be processed quickly, whereas adults have decades more to look at.

Since you aren't worried about interest rates you could just convert the money into AUD but keep it in the UK using one (or more) of the e-money institutions like Wise.

You'll have to explain what the problem is. Does something happen to Indian passports that have less than 4 months to expire? Do they self-destruct and disappear in a puff of smoke? If not it's a perfectly good photo ID and will remain so for years to come.

Sorry, I've no experience of virtual ceremonies. When I had my ceremony they did a room full of people (100 getting citizenship plus guests) in 15 minutes. I was assuming a virtual ceremony was the same (other than online) but it may be done individually.

Since it's virtual he can attend and make the pledge (just as in the old days nobody stopped guests from making the pledge) - but if he's not on the list he won't get a citizenship certificate for doing so!

They do it intentionally to make sure people do their tax returns. People don't like doing tax returns especially when it means they have to pay more tax but with the system rigged to ensure most people get refunds (especially this year due to the extension of the LMITO plus the change to withholding rates only occurring in October) people actually want to do their tax returns. PS: PM me if you haven't done your tax return yet and need professional help with it.

That's a much more precise question and the answer can't be blank because a sponsor who became a citizen by grant must have had a first arrival in Australia. I was thinking based on your original post "what happens is they are Australian by descent and have never been to Australia?" but it's clear now that the question is only for people who have become Australian citizens by grant and so, yes all you have to do is enter the date they first arrived in Australia. The very fact that the question says first arrived tells you they accept that they may since have left the country and so may have had second, third and later arrivals in Australia. Those they are not interested in and it's irrelevant to this question whether they are currently in the country or not. Do not put the date of their latest arrival that is not what has been asked.

Is this an electronic form that doesn't allow you to leave it blank (which would seem to be the correct answer if they aren't currently in Australia)? In that case I would interpret it as meaning when did they first arrive in Australia regardless of the fact that they have since left. If they were born in Australia that would be their date of birth. If it requires an answer for someone who was born outside of Australia and has never visited you'd be stuck though.

They've already taken it to court. That's how they've got a CCJ.

All seems a bit rich to me. Before the pandemic it took 6 to 8 months between approval and ceremony (sometimes longer) but now there's a pandemic messing up all the processes they expect it to be done quicker!

You pronounce the 't"? That is funny.

1. Probably - but it's complicated there are pros and cons and it depends upon what exchange rates do in the future. 2. If you take the lump sum it's taxable in Australia whether you move it over or not - however only the Applicable Fund Earnings (AFE) on the lump sum are taxable. If you take 100% of your pension fund as a lump sum then the AFE is the amount the pension fund grew since you became resident in Australia. The part that existed before you moved to Australia is tax free. However if you only draw down part of the fund then amount you draw down comes out of the AFE first and the tax free portion later. What that means is that if your fund has grown by a third or more since you moved to Australia the entire first 25% (the part that is Tax Free in the UK) is taxed and so if you only wanted to take that 25% it would all be taxed. One strategy to minimise tax (works well for smallish pension balances but not so well for large ones) is to take the lump sum in the UK and then pay the taxed portion in to your Super fund and claim a tax deduction for it. There are however strict rules on how to go about doing this and the amount you can do it with is capped, but if your total Super fund is under $500K you can make use of Unused Concessional Contribution Caps from previous years (FY2018 to FY2021 = 4 years of up to $25,000 each) plus the current year's $27,500. Note however that any SGC contributions by your employer come out of this Cap as well any contributions you make. Your super fund will pay 15% tax on the amount received but your tax saving should be a lot larger. Don't forget that any tax you have to pay in the UK (because you've taken more than 25% and you've gone over your UK tax free allowance) is an offset towards your Australian tax bill. 3. They charge fees, earn commissions or both.

The forms change regularly so it may no longer be the case, but I know my wife had to include our son's details on her form even though he was already a citizen since it required the details of all children not just those for whom citizenship was being applied for. There was a question "Does the applicant have any children under 16 years of age that are not applying for citizenship within this application?" Once you answer yes you need to fill in their details.

Attestation is an obsolete process for confirming a photocopy sent by post is a genuine copy of the original. There's no point to it now that documents are scanned and emailed because you can't tell if the attestation is real. That said if there is some reason you can't take the original document with you to the test/interview you would then need an attested copy.

Well you all taken a completely different interpretation to "Your one word that separates the UK from Australia" that I did when I read the title of this thread. The word that jumped out to me was "Pasta". Because Australian don't know how to pronounce it.

I think you need to talk to a third agent. Clearly one of the two you spoke to knows something the other one doesn't. Leaving your chances of success to one side for the moment, it's vital to know if in your situation you are allowed to apply for a partner visa or not and with one of these agents saying you are not allowed to apply and other saying you are allowed to apply you need to find out which one of them is the idiot.

They should check with a migration agent to see if they would be better off establishing an Australian Branch rather than an Australian Subsidiary. An Australian Branch can be an Australian employer just as easily as a Subsidiary. The advantage is that it's legally part of the original company rather than legally a new start up company with no history behind it that happens to be owned by the original company. I don't know if it would help or hinder the company's ability to sponsor an employee but definitely worth exploring the legal niceties with the lawyers and migration agents.

They seem to have taken the most complicated route with this "stapling". For about the last 5 years all employers have been required to have employees sign a Super Choice Form upon joining. There is the option on that form to tick a box to use the employer's choice of fund (which is really aggravating for small employers if they choose that because they then have to set one up). Would have been so much easier if they had simply required that option to be removed from the form.

Definitely is easier if you are married because you then have a marriage certificate. The rule are that a defacto couple will be treated the same a married couple but you need to put together a lot of evidence to prove that you are a defacto couple whereas that is normally covered by one piece of paper for a married couple. I say normally because of course if they have any concerns (and if you got married immediately before applying that might be the case) they can ask for more evidence.

It's hospital cover insurance that exempts you from the MLS not anything else that might be bundled in. If you get hospitalised in a public hospital then Medicare claim the Medicare rate from the insurance company. If you get hospitalised in a public hospital and don't have hospital cover then Medicare can't recover anything which is why you have to pay more tax if you are a higher earner. If you've got a very basic hospital cover only policy you might not see any benefit other than the tax saving but that doesn't mean the policy isn't doing anything.

What do you mean "with no caps"? There have been caps for almost 16 months now (all based on the tiny number of quarantine spaces available which is why airlines are only allowed to sell a ridiculously small number of seats per flight). American Airlines have just cancelled all of their flights from the US to Australia because they are already operating in the US at pre-Covid load factors and most international routes (other than Australia) aren't far behind so they are going to use their aircraft where they are most needed. Pre-Covid Australia had an average of 400,000 overseas arrivals per week. Allowing for two weeks of quarantine that would technically need 800,000 quarantine spaces. I think the actual number has been around 12,000 - but since the beginning of July they've halved it.

Actually businesses are required to pay Super (and Payroll tax if over the threshold) for Sole Trader contractors - although many dodge the requirement and sole traders are rarely in a position to enforce their right to Super if they want to keep on working for that business.

I think the problems being referred to are those of getting in to the country due to Covid, not those of getting in to a bank branch once they've arrived. As of the beginning of this month Morrison announced that only 3,000 travellers a week would be allowed in to Australia. That number doesn't include travellers from New Zealand (or celebrities apparently) so the total number of arrivals is a lot higher than that - but pre-covid arrivals into Australia averaged 400,000 per week.