Marisawright

There are several good agents on this forum, the agent doesn't have to be in your city. Try pinoyau.com MaggieMay has replied to your original questions about student visas etc, but that is an expensive way to go. I think you'd be best to go for the PMV and then worry about the details of the permanent visa later.

There is no requirement to live together for the prospective marriage visa. Your friend is confusing it with another visa

You will include him in your application just like you did for the 482. Note that if you’re eligible, you could apply for a 189 visa now without waiting for your employer, which would avoid the risk of the rules changing.

The visa you need is a Prospective Marriage Visa. That will allow you to move to Australia, and then you have a certain amount of time to get married.

That's what I mean. It's either self-catering or a motel - guest houses are less common I think.

It won't affect your UK state pension at all because the UK pension is not means-tested. If you have a private pension in the UK, it has nothing to do with that either. The first thing to do is write to your superannuation company and tell them you're living overseas, if you haven't already. Instruct them to cancel all insurances immediately, as they're probably not valid anyway now you're overseas. Also look at which company you're with. Recently there was an enquiry and it turned out that a lot of super funds were rorting people shamelessly and performing badly. If you're in one of those, the fees will erode your balance and it'll be hardly worth having by the time you can get your hands on the money. Moving to another fund is pretty painless. Hesta is one that's often recommended. The bad news is that if you take the money as a lump sum, you'll get hammered for tax by the UK government. However you may not have enough to be worth converting it to a pension. It's not a decision you have to make yet, anyway. The best plan is to leave it in the super fund as long as you can, then get some advice from a tax agent.

From a customer's perspective, I'd expect running a guest house in Australia would be tough. Firstly, I don't find that Australians have a tradition of bed and breakfast/guest houses. When people go on holiday, they stay in a motel, or a hotel, or a holiday apartment. The only places where you see a lot of guest houses is in "olde worlde" tourist areas like the Southern Highlands, where it fits that "quaint" vibe. Secondly, there's AirBnB, which is huge in Australia. Nowadays when I'm travelling interstate, I go straight to AirBnB because I know it's going to be the best value. Take some time to browse through the site and see whether you could afford to compete.

Me too. There was a period where I was fitting out the offices for our Wollongong branch and had to travel down there several times a week. At the height of the project, I stayed in a hotel there Monday to Friday. All the people who worked in the office there were nice - much friendlier than the average Sydneysider I have to say - and so were the construction workers, who were all local. I never felt unsafe walking around the town in the evening, and had some lovely meals in the restaurants there. There's a few apartment blocks on the beach which have become a real magnet for retirees wanting to make a seachange but still have city amenities close by.

I'm not sure that constitutes a tie at all.

Definitely talk to an agent. This is so important to your future, you shouldn't rely on amateur advice in a forum to make the decision.

The unemployment rate might be an issue, though I wouldn't have thought it was a lot better on the Central Coast. The thing is, Wollongong is a city, and like any city, it has nice suburbs and bad suburbs. There are parts of the Central Coast that have bad drug problems too. Read some of the reviews of the suburbs around the Illawarra region here: https://www.homely.com.au/search/suburbs-in-illawarra-new-south-wales

There is no way so I advise you to find another dream

He could stay indefinitely on the bridging visa but there are pitfalls, as VeryStormy says. His British pension will be frozen at the rate it is today, and he won't be eligible for any pension or aged care benefits from the Australian government. If he can't afford a contributory visa, then how will he afford a private nursing home if he needs one in his old age?

I always remember when our family was invited to have dinner at the home of an Indian family. This was back in Scotland and I was a young teenager at the time, I think. The food was nice, but I remember being bemused that it was nothing like any Indian food I had ever seen.

I am sorry, but no. There is no way for you to move to Australia. To be considered for any skilled visa, you must be under 45, so you are already too old.

This is an important point. I think it's vitally important to realise that the "point of no return" does exist. It worries me when I see people posting that they don't feel settled in Australia, but they stay because the pay is better or they're reluctant to give up their job or they don't want to disrupt the kids' education - and before they know it, years have gone by and suddenly they can't afford to move home because their pensions will be stuffed. Or their kids have grown up and feel Australian, so moving back to the UK means leaving them and eventually being separated from grandkids.

Yes, I've hired a car many times on an Aussie licence with no difficulty. Let's face it, car hire companies would soon go out of business if they only rented to UK residents and refused all tourists! Good point about not using the old British licence - I have a feeling some companies wouldn't check the address so you'd get away with it, but it's not worth risking the insurance being invalid IMO.

Just be aware, I always thought agents would be aware of all the restrictions and snags of trying to live in Australia on a bridging visa, but I've since learned that's not part of their job. Their job is to find you the quickest way to get you into Australia, not to advise on the possible risks. My post, which Linda quoted above, is an attempt to fill in those blanks.

You've paid the RMA a decent fee, so you're entitled to go back and ask questions! It's a common misconception that when you apply for a visa, your application goes in an orderly queue and when yours gets to the top, it will be considered. Wrong. It's a competition, and the people with the most points get picked out of the queue. If there are hundreds of applications arriving every day with high points, people with a low score will simply languish in the queue, ignored. So the first question to your RMA is, "What is the current points threshold?" If, as you say, the current threshold is 85 points, then you have a snowball's chance and you would simply be throwing money away if you apply. Your biggest problem is that 45 is the cut-off for a permanent visa, so you are getting close to the point where migration will be impossible.

No, people don't need your Medicare card for ID. You've got a passport, driver's licence, credit card - Medicare is just another alternative. If you've booked into an AirBnB for 3 weeks, you're thinking you've got 3 weeks to find a property. You haven't. You've got 2 days, or maybe 4. That's because most properties are only "open for inspection" for 15 minutes to half an hour on Saturdays, and sometimes (but not always) on one other day of the week. Try this exercise: get on domain.com.au or realestate.com.au and pretend you want to inspect some rental properties this week. Mark the ones you think are worth looking at and make up an itinerary to view them all, taking into account travel time between them, time to find parking etc. How many can you get to see? Bear in mind that agents routinely photoshop photos, so a lot of the properties you've got on your list will turn out to be unsuitable. Also bear in mind that some properties won't be empty - the previous tenants haven't moved out yet, so there will be a delay before you can move in. Even if it's empty, it'll take a week to do the paperwork even after your application is accepted. The problem with booking an AirBnB for 3 weeks is that if you need to extend, you may find it's not available and you'll need to move. That may not be an issue if it's just the two of you but with kids, you might want the stability of staying in one place. Also consider that you can often get a bigger discount for a 28-day booking.

If you're so sure of that, why are you asking?

You’re a professional migration agent and you’re using a Yahoo email address??

Any employer who tries to sponsor an employee without the help of an agent is asking for trouble

If ypu are on a bridging visa A, then you need to apply for a bridging visa b before you travel

If you’re thinking of returning then it’s time to decide NOW. Move home within the next year or two and they’ll adapt ( though they’ll probably moan about it). Wait any longer and they’ll be heading for the HSC and you’ll be too worried about disrupting their chances at doing well in their exams. Wait till after their HSC and you’ll have to pay international fees for them to go to uni on the UK. Wait till after uni and they’ll have boyfriends or girlfriends and won’t want to return with you.