Cuthere

Wanted to share with everyone on this forum that we are on the WE GOT IT
list! austimeline under cuthere. Wanted to share our experience as we
have benefited so much from this forum (although we do not visit it
often as the regulars in the forum) and hope that someone may benefit
from our experience.

Actually we did look into this migration thinggee
5 years ago when our good friends got theirs - I actually took the
trouble to fill out the application (without an agent) with all the
required documents but somehow at the AHC, we encountered one problem
with another and we shelved the idea.

Five years on, our good friends
in Perth have gone on to become Australian citizens and are extremely
happy with Perth, work, etc. Found out that quite a lot in our circle
of friends have thought about it or have done it. SO in on a Sunday in
June 03, my husband and I went into the DIMIA website and did a quick
check on whether we were still eligible. Found that we could, by the
skin of our teeth. Decided that 5 years on, we still wanted to do it
and so started the process before it was too late. Admittedly the
initial stages were quite dauntingly and given our jobs and work,
decided that we could afford to hire an agent to help with the process.


Met the agent and lo and behold he told us that we were eligible for
139 which is currently priority processed. The paperwork gathering took
us some time especially the employer reference. Agent finally advised
that if hubby was not able to get a reference from employer - a peer of
the same rank would do. Since we felt that we were not prepared to tell
hubby's employers of intended plans, hubby's colleague was taken into
confidence. With the letter, we were ready to go.

Sat in the agent's
office and filled up forms with him and documents were copied. Medicals
were stressful to us and we received much comfort from this forum. My
experience is that if you have a medical condition, get a specialist
report on it and with it, you can go for your medical. Our agent was
adamant that this was the way to go. He didn't want us to be caught
with a medical condition and the panel doctor referred us to one of our
specialists which could put things out of our hands.

We have come a
long way - but maybe not as long as some of you but ultimately we end
with a "WE GOT IT" post. The grant letter came by email through the
agent altho we were resigned to another long wait. It is finally over
and all we have to do now is go to the AHC to get the stickers in our
passports.

Our experience with our agent has been good altho at times I
felt that things were not under our control and we were subjected to
their judgement on how and when DIMIA should be chased. If it was left
to me, I would have chased DIMIA soon after the 2 months indication
which they gave in their letter requesting for medicals. The agent was
pretty much happy to keep waiting and only after I insisted that they
send a chaser (after 3 months) which they did (although reluctantly -
they were happy to wait one more month!) and immediately got a response
from our case officer. I am a very hands on kind of person and the
agent's willingness to wait frustrated me quite a bit.

My feeling is
that if you have given DIMIA enough time (their definition, not yours),
it is not unreasonable to ask them for an update. All in all, having an
agent does help with the initial process and gives you the peace of mind
that you have done the best of applications. To give them credit, it
was the agent who highlighted to us that we were eligible for 139. We
somehow missed it although we had done tonnes of research even before
meeting them.

If you can't afford an agent, you can do without one if
yours is pretty straightforward - just do a lot of research on this
forum. The people in the forum have been really helpful and we find our
questions answered in one thread or another, spiced with loads of
wonderful English humour - makes it wonderful to read. Oh, the agent
did a covering note with our application which basically highlighted how
hubby satisfied all the criteria in the class that we applied for.


Hubby's aunt was a gem to sponsor us - without which it would have
been impossible. Our wonderful friends in Perth which gave us the
assurance of support. They were more excited than us about the whole
migration process. We bought a house in Perth in the same neighbourhood
as them and our kids will attend the same school. We are headed for
Perth in June 04!! We figured that life is short, so we are going to
give it a shot while we still can and we are lucky to have supportive
friends whom we are extremely close to.

Good Luck to everyone else!!
Hang in there - yours is on the way!!

Mairi&Chris

Congratulations from another recent WE GOT IT poster.

We are heading to
Perth too (April 2004) as are a lot of other recent GOT IT posters.
Maybe we will all be able to meet up there !

Debsy

Congratulations. Glad to hear that it has all worked out for you.

Good
luck for the future.

Oberon

GREAT NEWS, WISH U ALL THE BEST.
REGARDS,
OBERON
Originally
posted by cuthere
    > Wanted to share with everyone on this forum
that we are on the WE GOT IT list! austimeline under cuthere. Wanted
to share our experience as we have benefited so much from this forum
(although we do not visit it often as the regulars in the forum) and
hope that someone may benefit from our experience.
    >
    > Actually we did
look into this migration thinggee 5 years ago when our good friends got
theirs - I actually took the trouble to fill out the application
(without an agent) with all the required documents but somehow at the
AHC, we encountered one problem with another and we shelved the idea.

    >
    > Five years on, our good friends in Perth have gone on to become
Australian citizens and are extremely happy with Perth, work, etc.
Found out that quite a lot in our circle of friends have thought about
it or have done it. SO in on a Sunday in June 03, my husband and I went
into the DIMIA website and did a quick check on whether we were still
eligible. Found that we could, by the skin of our teeth. Decided that
5 years on, we still wanted to do it and so started the process before
it was too late. Admittedly the initial stages were quite dauntingly
and given our jobs and work, decided that we could afford to hire an
agent to help with the process.
    >
    > Met the agent and lo and behold
he told us that we were eligible for 139 which is currently priority
processed. The paperwork gathering took us some time especially the
employer reference. Agent finally advised that if hubby was not able to
get a reference from employer - a peer of the same rank would do. Since
we felt that we were not prepared to tell hubby's employers of intended
plans, hubby's colleague was taken into confidence. With the letter, we
were ready to go.
    >
    > Sat in the agent's office and filled up forms
with him and documents were copied. Medicals were stressful to us and
we received much comfort from this forum. My experience is that if you
have a medical condition, get a specialist report on it and with it, you
can go for your medical. Our agent was adamant that this was the way to
go. He didn't want us to be caught with a medical condition and the
panel doctor referred us to one of our specialists which could put
things out of our hands.
    >
    > We have come a long way - but maybe not
as long as some of you but ultimately we end with a "WE GOT IT" post.
The grant letter came by email through the agent altho we were resigned
to another long wait. It is finally over and all we have to do now is
go to the AHC to get the stickers in our passports.
    >
    > Our experience
with our agent has been good altho at times I felt that things were not
under our control and we were subjected to their judgement on how and
when DIMIA should be chased. If it was left to me, I would have chased
DIMIA soon after the 2 months indication which they gave in their letter
requesting for medicals. The agent was pretty much happy to keep
waiting and only after I insisted that they send a chaser (after 3
months) which they did (although reluctantly - they were happy to wait
one more month!) and immediately got a response from our case officer.
I am a very hands on kind of person and the agent's willingness to wait
frustrated me quite a bit.
    >
    > My feeling is that if you have given
DIMIA enough time (their definition, not yours), it is not unreasonable
to ask them for an update. All in all, having an agent does help with
the initial process and gives you the peace of mind that you have done
the best of applications. To give them credit, it was the agent who
highlighted to us that we were eligible for 139. We somehow missed it
although we had done tonnes of research even before meeting them.
    >
If you can't afford an agent, you can do without one if yours is pretty
straightforward - just do a lot of research on this forum. The people
in the forum have been really helpful and we find our questions answered
in one thread or another, spiced with loads of wonderful English humour
- makes it wonderful to read. Oh, the agent did a covering note with
our application which basically highlighted how hubby satisfied all the
criteria in the class that we applied for.
    >
    > Hubby's aunt was a gem
to sponsor us - without which it would have been impossible. Our
wonderful friends in Perth which gave us the assurance of support. They
were more excited than us about the whole migration process. We bought
a house in Perth in the same neighbourhood as them and our kids will
attend the same school. We are headed for Perth in June 04!! We
figured that life is short, so we are going to give it a shot while we
still can and we are lucky to have supportive friends whom we are
extremely close to.
    >
Good Luck to everyone else!! Hang in there -
yours is on the way!!

Agentsmith

Congrats for your visa..

I totally agree with you about contacting
DIMIA, since I am a hands on person myself, the thought of using an
agent was "briefly" entertained. I found that I had no bad experiences
calling DIMIA and my case officer was so polite in the emails...

I
think that fear has been spread very effectively thourgh forums just
like this one.. In the end, it is your application and you alone can
only know how much anxiety you can handle

Cuthere

Thanks for taking time to respond, everyone. Wishing you all the best
for all your future plans whatever they may be!

Mairi&Chris, I have 2
boys (9 & 4), please PM me and we can keep in touch when we are there.


Agentsmith, as long as you give them the time that they specify in
their letters / correspondence to you, it wouldn't be unfair, but then
again, every case officer is different.

Alan White

Been here six months now. What a stuggle to get the visa BUT worth it. Found
a job after about 6 weeks of arriving over here, Had to got somewhere to
live first and get transport. Renting at the moment looking to find
somewhere to buy now, house prices in sydney are very expenise even
compaired to the southern coast of the uk. good news for the moment is that
house prices are slowing(depending on areas even stopping)
Sydney is a expenise place to live and the australian dollar is very strong
at the moment(when I applied for my visa the exchange rate was bewteen 2.7
to 2.9) But when I got the visa the exchange rate was 2.48, I live at a
place called Berowra and the city of sydney is about 1/2 hour away. Traffic
in the morning can get pretty bad.
Its been very hot over here at the moment, always close to 30C and sometimes
it gets up to 40c, bit odd after so many christmas's in the cold(come from
the southern coast of the uk).

Well worth the wait to get the visa( I applied for my visa in April 2001 and
got the nod late june 2003) and came out in august 03.

4000 Psi

do you get to the ocean much ... take a dip? how is the water?

"Alan White" <> wrote in message
news:402d81fd$0$27648$...
    > Been here six months now. What a stuggle to get the visa BUT worth it.
Found
    > a job after about 6 weeks of arriving over here, Had to got somewhere to
    > live first and get transport. Renting at the moment looking to find
    > somewhere to buy now, house prices in sydney are very expenise even
    > compaired to the southern coast of the uk. good news for the moment is
that
    > house prices are slowing(depending on areas even stopping)
    > Sydney is a expenise place to live and the australian dollar is very
strong
    > at the moment(when I applied for my visa the exchange rate was bewteen 2.7
    > to 2.9) But when I got the visa the exchange rate was 2.48, I live at a
    > place called Berowra and the city of sydney is about 1/2 hour away.
Traffic
    > in the morning can get pretty bad.
    > Its been very hot over here at the moment, always close to 30C and
sometimes
    > it gets up to 40c, bit odd after so many christmas's in the cold(come from
    > the southern coast of the uk).
    > Well worth the wait to get the visa( I applied for my visa in April 2001
and
    > got the nod late june 2003) and came out in august 03.