Marisawright

There is no way to transfer the state pension, you will still be entitled to claim it from Australia. The two systems are completely different (the Australian one is means tested for a start, so if you have a private pension you may not even get it).

Sydney is a great place for young people with no kids, who can be comfortable in a small rented flat. It’s a fun city. The difficulty starts when you decide to start a family and need a bigger place, or want to buy. People say rents are high in Sydney but they haven’t kept up with house purchase prices

We usually recommend the agents who post on these forums. The fact that they offer so much free advice on these forums shows they are generous with their time. Pinoyau.com or ozimmigration.com

That's my point - that's what Immigration will look at: "he doesn't need to live in Australia to see her", therefore that doesn't count as a strong tie. I'd say that's why your application is taking a while, because it's borderline. But as I say, we've seen a lot of people get one recently who had borderline cases, so you may be fine.

That's the point I was making. If you stay in the UK until it expires, you may not be able to "keep it up to date", because you may not qualify to get it renewed. You have to show "strong ties to Australia" or they turn you down, no matter how strong your reasons are for leaving. So make sure you understand those rules.

Homely.com.au is probably the best I've found for suburb reviews.

I''m afraid time spent as a trainee doesn't count.

I second what Maggie says. You can waste an awful lot of time, and get things totally wrong, trying to work it out yourself. These days, an agent is worth the investment.

Just make sure you're on top of your visa situation. Are you aware that although it's called "permanent residence", a PR visa isn't really permanent? It's worth nothing if you don't have a valid travel facility to go with it, so if you don't have citizenship, make sure you've got a valid RRV before you leave the country. Also remember it only lasts 5 years and if you haven't kept a home in Australia, you'll have bugger-all chance of getting it renewed if you let it expire.

Ouch. In Sydney, they would've paid $27,000 in stamp duty and levies, plus about $2,000 for solicitor costs. So buying would've cost them $829,000. If they had to sell it now, they'd have to sell for $750,000 and a typical real estate commission would be at least 2.5%, plus advertising plus solicitor costs. So all up, they'd be lucky to get $725,000 in their pocket if they sold now. Just illustrates that owning your own home doesn't always pay off if you're not sure you'll live there for the long term.

I second everything VeryStormy says. In practice, having months to plan isn't always helpful, because there is so much that you can't do until the last few weeks anyway. Do you still have British bank accounts?

Check with Southern Inland if they have rules about who can certify. They may insist on a solicitor or (in Scotland) a Notary Public - in which case, you'll need to shop around and see what people charge, as there's no set fee. Otherwise, here's the official information on how to get a copy certified in the UK: https://www.gov.uk/certifying-a-document

If you've got family to check it out, then maybe it's OK, but I would still be careful. As I pointed out in my other reply, the problem with Australia is the stamp duty. Let's say you buy a house for $500,000 and then when you arrive, you don't like it. Or maybe you end up getting jobs somewhere further away, and it's not practical. You put up with it for six months or a year, and you try to sell it. House prices won't have gone up much in that time (in fact in some places, they're predicting they'll go backwards), so it's still only worth $500,000. That means you've got no chance of recouping the $30,000 in stamp duty and fees that you paid when you bought the place, and what's worse, the real estate agent and conveyancer will take a further chunk of fees when you sell. So I'd say you need to be very confident of your family's ability to choose for you.

If you're looking at 3-4 years, then you're probably better off renting. When you buy a house, you pay a lot of money in fees and duty upfront, then you pay high interest in the early years of the mortgage, plus council rates and water rates. Then you have costs if you eventually sell. If you add all those up, you'll find they are a lot more than your rent would have been. In years past, the house would have shot up in value during those five years to make up for that - but the Australian house market is flat and they're predicting it will remain so for several years, so that's unlikely. To explain: When you buy a house in Australia, you have to pay stamp duty on top of the purchase price (and in some states, it's a higher rate if you're on a 489). Let's say you bought a house for $500,000. Depending which state you're in, you'll be charged between $10,000 and $30,000 in stamp duty, plus $1,000-$2,000 in solicitor's costs etc. Then there's the mortgage cost. In the early years of a mortgage, about two-thirds of each repayment is actually interest - you're hardly paying off the principal at all, unless you're able to make extra payments. Say you need a modest $300K mortgage - in 4 years, you'll pay about $70,000, of which about $50,000 will be just paying the interest. Then you've got to add council rates (like council tax) and water rates - neither of which you have to pay if you're renting. You're also liable for all the repairs and maintenance on your house, which you wouldn't be if you're renting. Finally there are solicitors costs, advertising and real estate commission when you sell. So, if you buy a house, you'll end up shelling out at least $100,000 in costs over 4 years, over and above the purchase price of the house. How much would rent cost over that period?

Not a fair comparison, those migrants are British. Australians who have lived for years in Britain can come back to Oz and claim benefits, too. A fair comparison would be with Australian parents who would like to come and join their Australian migrant children in the UK. Which is a comparison we can't make, because there is no visa to allow them to do so.

I don't think there's any need to have it investigated, because dairy intolerance is not an illness. It's probably lactose intolerance and it doesn't need treatment, It's just the way he was born. It's a very common thing. Over 90% of all Chinese people are lactose intolerant. 75% of Africans are lactose intolerant. Funnily enough, my husband is lactose intolerant and he didn't find out until he was in his fifties, when he was being tested for something else. He just knew that milk "didn't agree with him", but he made himself eat milk and yoghurt because he felt they were good for him. Now I buy lactose-free milk and yoghurt instead.

Yes, but you're forgetting why they came to Australia. Australia doesn't owe me, or any other migrant, anything at all. The truth is that migrants come to Australia because Australia offers THEM benefits. Yes, Australia benefits from their work, but the bargain is in the migrant's favour. Let's face it, what migrant would stay in the country if they didn't feel they were getting a fair deal? I doubt there were many migrants who came to Australia with a mission to build the country. They came to Australia, as I did, because they thought it offered THEM a better life. I certainly feel I've had a fair bargain - I pay my taxes and Australia gives me a good life. To suggest that migrants deserve something extra for being such hard workers, as if they've made sacrifices for Australia's sake, is just ridiculous.

I'm in my 60's and I'd be the first to protest that I'm a useful member of society, but the fact remains that in the coming years, I'm going to start contributing less and less tax and costing the taxpayer more and more. Statistics show that while our generation will all live longer than our parents and grandparents, we're not living healthier - the majority of people over the age of 70 are on several medications, and will need regular minor ops and investigative procedures. Blood pressure pills, hip replacements, cancer, cataracts, heart disease, Parkinsons, dementia - we're all going to die of something. When you consider one operation can cost the government $30,000, you can see how expensive old age can get. And that's before we get to the cost of aged care. What makes all that cost OK is that I spent my working years paying into the system to cover it. People arriving on the parents' visa haven't, and that's what the fee is meant to cover. The report is just saying that in their view, the fee still isn't high enough to do that., and they may be right. I've often thought it would be much better if they changed the system so parents were allowed to come without being charged a fee, but barred from accessing Medicare, the pension or any other benefits. It would avoid all these recriminations. I suspect the government is worried about the bad publicity when, inevitably, some parents would run out of money and then there would be sob stories in the press about them being forced back to the UK.

As I understand it, all the compelling reasons in the world count for nothing, unless you can show "strong ties" to Australia. If your OH's mother is his only living relative then that might be enough, but if he's managed to get by seeing her only six weeks out of the five years, then it doesn't sound like he's got much of a strong need to be with her. That said, there have been several people granted RRV's recently whom I wouldn't have expected to get one, so you might be lucky. Fingers crossed.

Makes no difference - if those nurses, doctors, teachers etc went home, there are plenty more people in the skilled visa queues.

What a shame. When we did our application, the officer went through and checked the documents were all there, and even sent my husband down to the local pharmacy to get the photos redone because she said they weren't suitable. Sounds like your oh got somebody unhelpful. I see on the letter that they're saying your oh was sent an email asking for the Appendix 2 to be completed, so he didn't get it? I can understand why you missed the Appendix 2 because it's not at all clear on the online application that you need to complete it. We would have missed it too, except that I was worried by the fact that we weren't being asked to submit our financial evidence - so I looked into it more deeply and found Appendix 2.

Firstly, how sure are you that the young working tax-paying children would return? I suspect many would not. Secondly, they are not irreplaceable. There are hordes of people in the skilled visa queues, desperate to replace them.

Is there a reason you're looking for an employer-sponsored visa and not a permanent move? It's getting hard to find employer-sponsored visas because the new process is more complicated and expensive for employers, so they've got to be pretty desperate for staff before they're willing to sponsor anyone.

If you meet the 2 year requirement then it's usually processed quickly because it's given automatically. All of the posters on this thread failed to meet the 2 year requirement so none of them are automatically entitled to a RRV.

I've already replied on your main thread, but it's worth pointing out that although this thread is about a social worker who got a good relocation package on a temp visa, that was two years ago and it was on the old "457" visa that doesn't exist any more. So I wouldn't necessarily take it as a sign of what's possible.