Applying for our Australia Permanent Residency Visa took 18 months as we were on the old system, I believe the process is much quicker these days, although I will explain our process for those who may be interested. We started the process in  August 2003.

We decided to use an agent, Ian Harrop and Associates as applying for an Australian visa was a time consuming task and it was so important to get all the paperwork right first time.  As our agent had contacts in Australia and had worked in Australia House, we felt we had a better chance of having our application accepted.  Since arriving in Australia we have met other families who used the same agent successfully and with a far complex entry criteria than ourselves.  We never met our agent, the whole process was by email and phone, but we would certainly recommend them.

Our visa was a sponsored skilled visa as my husband had many years experience of being a diesel mechanic.  Unfortunately on deciding to apply for our visa he had been in a completely different job and his service time as a diesel mechanic fell short in hours, therefore we had a difficult decision to go back into the same line of work and leave the current office job or find a second diesel mechanic job working 20 hours a week (all above board).  For 8 months my husband gained his extra hours in a second job as a diesel mechanic and the skilled part of our application was accepted.  His hard work paid off!

Putting together all the necessary paperwork, requesting police checks, obtaining ALL company references (even if a company had been taken over, merged or liquidated), all education certificates, personal certificates (marriage and birth) for ourselves and immediate family members had to be located, which in some cases were difficult to obtain.  Once all this information had been supplied to our agent the application was lodged and we were charged including fees approx $2,000, but well worth it.

The following months were agonising as we really didn't know whether our application would be accepted and we were in limbo.  Apart from our immediate family we did not inform our friends or employers of our intentions just in case we were rejected.  This was difficult; as we knew once our visa was accepted we had only a 12 month period to enter into Australia to have our passports stamps to validate our visas.  We did not research Australia as we did not want to get our hopes up; therefore once our application was accepted we had a very busy time selling our home in the UK and organising flights, shipment of our goods etc.

We decided only to ship out our personal belongings, some toys, bikes and a conservatory suite, but this still took half a container!  In hindsight we had wished we had brought most of our furniture with us as purchasing from new we found expensive, plus time consuming when trying to set up schools, work and of course find a home.  Most of our furniture and white goods we sold at car boot sales and practically gave away!  So my advice to anyone would be bring everything, even the old pans!

 In my next blog I will inform you the saga we had regarding our container of goods arriving at Brisbane during a dispute on the docks and the cost of cleaning certain items.

 If anyone has any questions regarding the visa process, please do not hesitate to ask.