parent visa

[phil&Sue]

Hi,

can anyone help pls. we have my husbands step mum, who is recently widowed, with no children in UK. She has good health apart from osteoporosis.

 

I have had a quick look on the immi. website, can anyone tell me if they have been through the process, length of time, cost etc.

 

there is a parent visa/retirement visa, can they come out initially on a visa while its being processed etc...

We are fortunately permanent residents.

 

any info greatly appreciated, many thanks,

Sue

[Gollywobbler]

Hi,

can anyone help pls. we have my husbands step mum, who is recently widowed, with no children in UK. She has good health apart from osteoporosis.

 

I have had a quick look on the immi. website, can anyone tell me if they have been through the process, length of time, cost etc.

 

there is a parent visa/retirement visa, can they come out initially on a visa while its being processed etc...

We are fortunately permanent residents.

 

any info greatly appreciated, many thanks,

Sue

 

Hello Sue

 

My mother has osteoporosis. Because of it, she has broken her back, her hip and her wrist in recent years. Apparently these 3 fractures are the ones that osteoporosis patients most commonly suffer. Mum's back injury has meant that she has largely been confined to a wheelchair ever since it happened. I don't think her hip and wrist injuries caused any lasting damage but her spinal fracture definitely did. That happened in 1996, when she was 75.

 

In 2005, we were considering whether to apply for a Contributory Parent visa for Mum, who was by then 84. My sister was very pessimistic about whether Mum would get through the visa meds but I scoured everything I could find and reached the opposite conclusion.

 

So I then asked DIAC whether they had any ideas? They suggested getting one of their Panel Doctors to examine Mum before we made a final decision about whether or not to apply. So I took Mum to see the nearest Panel Doctor. He said that having osteoporosis and being in a wheelchair would not be a bar by themselves and that it would depend on Mum's general health, which was excellent in his opinion, so he reckoned that she wouldn't have a problem with the Medical Officer of the Commonwealth. He was right and seeing him was one of the best things we ever did because it gave us so much reassurance.

 

With regard to the legal side of Hubby's step-mother's situation, working it out is quite fiddly. My mother has a step-daughter and Mum is widowed but Mum also has two children of her own, myself and my sister in Oz. I live in the UK, as does my half-sister, so if my half-sster was going to be treated as one of Mum's "children" then Mum would not be eligible for Parent migration. I'm not one to waste money on a wing and a prayer so I discussed this aspect with DIAC very carefully before we spent the money to apply for Mum's CPV.

 

You've said that Step-Mum in law has "no children in the UK." Does she have any children or step-children living anywhere else apart from your Hubby, please? If yes, how many and where do they live?

 

If your Hubby is the only child or step-child, how old was he when his step-mum married his father, please? That might seem to be a daft and irrelevant question but I can assure you that it isn't.

 

What I found with regard to my own mother was as follows:

 

Section 1.05 of the Migration Regulations 1994 is called "The Balance of Family Test." According to S1.05, a step-child counts as a "child" UNLESS the step-child was 18 or over at the time of the relevant marriage.

 

However Section 1.03 of the Regulations is headed Definitions and it contains a definition of what is a "step-child." It says that a step-child is not the visa applicant's child unless the step-child is under 18 at the time of the visa application AND the step-parent has a legal duty to look after the step-child.

 

These two provisions contradict each other completely and there was nothing in the Regulations to say which of the two provisions ought to prevail in my mother's case.

 

Our own facts are that my half-sister was 12 at the time of the relevant marriage but she was over 60 by the time we were considering applying for a CPV for my mother. So these two provisions in the Regulations were capable of producing two different outcomes for Mum, depending on which provision was deemed to prevail.

 

So I wrote to the Parents Visa Centre and explained that I understood the legal problem but I had no idea how to solve it, so what did they think the Law ought to be, please? They wrote back and said that their Policy department was aware of this conflict and had told the PVC that the latter "must use the provision that does not disadvantage the visa applicant."

 

Which, in my opinion, is a very clumsy way of dealing with a legal issue - why don't they change the statutory Regulations so that they say whatever the Aussie Parliament wants them to say? That is much less clumsy than relying on Policy to try to extract some commonsense out of woolly wording imho. (I'm a solicitor so I feel entitled to make this criticism because I know what I'm talking about with statute law!)

 

However, this cack-handed Policy "solution" would solve the problem on a practical level because the PVC confirmed that my half-sister would be ignored for the purpose of counting Mum's "children." So that was OK and we duly obtained a CPV for Mum. We applied in 2005 and got the visa in 2006.

 

SINCE THEN - ALL CHANGE! There is a brand new need to be extremely careful about this with your step M-i-L. Please read the new information below VERY carefully:

 

http://www.immi.gov.au/legislation/amendments/2011/110701/lc01072011-11.htm

 

I'm not sure what DIAC mean in the two paragraphs that are relevant to you. Ideally, I think we need to wait until the new Regulations are published, so that we can see exactly what Ss1.03 and 1.05 will say on and after 1st July 2011. Which is only a few days away now, so I think it is best to wait for the new edition of the Regulations and see what they actually say. We can always question the PVC again if we are still not sure once we can read the new wording.

 

From DIAC's waffle, I can't understand exactly what they are proposing to do when the relevant child is actually a step-child. I think it is 100% reasonable to say that when the only child is actually a step-child then the Step-parent should be allowed to migrate but I am not sure whether that is what they mean.

 

I imagine that they also intend to do away with the nonsense about the step-child's age on the date of the relevant marriage because that creates a lottery, which is a legal anathema in this sort of situation, in my firm opinion.

 

The Balance of Family Test was very badly drafted in the first place and I am not sure whether the new changes will straighten it out satisfactorily.

 

So I'll send you a Private Message in a minute, giving you my e-mail address. I'm very interested in this "step-child issue" because we are veterans of it ouselves and I was given "legal advice" that was actually inaccurate when I tried to ask some migration agents about it before we applied for Mum's CPV. The agents who I spoke to were guessing and interpreting S1.05 literally, without considering whether the conflicting provision in S1.03 altered the legal picture. Their Law was not good enough for them to get this right but the ones who I asked were not lawyers, so that figures, I guess!

 

Forget it with the Investor Retirement visa if your step-M-i-L can get a Parent or Contributory Parent instead. Parent migration would give her Permanent Residence, which an IR visa would not. If the Parent is also a millionaire then the Temporary Residence status does create tax-breaks but most people are not millionaires so the tax-angle is hardly ever enough to make a difference about which of the two visas to choose.

 

Also, Alan Collett of Go Matilda, who posts on here, is a Chartered Accountant as well as a Registered Migration Agent. Alan always says, "Don't let the tax tail wag the visa dog" and I'm sure he is (almost) always right about that. He might be right all the time, in fact, but I once discussed the question with a Parent who was also a millionaire and had been the Finance Director of a major multi-national company. In spite of Alan's view, this other man said he thought that the tax-angle would make an IR visa more attractive for him and his wife, even though they were eligible for Parent migration as well. I just said, "Yessir" because I wouldn't get involved with discussing tax-angles on any meaningful level with anyone! Me and Tax are mutually exclusive ideas, I assure you!

 

I think that if there is so much money sloshing about that the tax-angles might be relevant to your step-M-i-L then she should instruct Alan Collett to advise her very carefully about all her options and what might be best. In that situation, personally I would not consult anyone except Alan. He makes Tax sound astonishingly easy and handles it like a ballerina, whereas I think it is the most unintelligible subject on earth!

 

http://www.gomatilda.com/contact.cfm#ourpeople

[Gollywobbler]

Hi again, Sue

 

One of your other questions was whether the lady would be able to visit Oz whilst her application for another visa is being processed. Yes, she can. My mother went to Oz 3 weeks after we applied for her CPV and then left Oz 3 weeks before it was granted. She used a long-stay Tourist Visa whilst she waited:

 

http://www.immi.gov.au/visitors/tourist/676/

 

A lot of CPV applicants spend some or all of their waiting time in Oz. DIAC are used to it and they encourage it.

 

That said, how old is your Step-M-i-L, please? If she is 65 or over (or as near as dammit 65) then she should be eligible for an onshore Contributory Aged Parent visa or an Aged Parent visa, in which case she would be obliged to be in Australia and DIAC would grant her a Bridging Visa in order to make that possible. You have not mentioned her age but it might well be relevant to deciding the best visa strategy for her, so please tell me about that bit.

 

With regard to costs, processing times etc, it depends which visa you choose. Could she afford a Contributory Parent or Contributory Aged Parent visa? If so, I think that one of the two is probably her best option. Applications for CAPVs are processed within 3-6 months because there is not much demand for them so DIAC deal with them very quickly. The offshore ordinary Contributory Parent visa is much more popular, so the waiting times had increased to around 18-20 months at one stage, but the waiting time has been coming down lately because DIAC have noticed a significant drop in demand for them since the Global Financial Crisis hit.

 

With the non-contributory Parent visa, the waiting time has recently come down to about 10 years - but it might increase again if they decrease the annual quota of visas again. The waiting time for an onshore Aged Parent visa is about 7 years but that is irrelevant, really, because the Parent will already be in Oz.

 

If you are thinking about one of the Contributory visas, think in terms of $55,000 AUD. That is roughly about right so it will do for the moment. For the non-contributory visas, the cost is roughly around $12,000 AUD all-in.

 

What nationality is your step-M-i-L please? That can sometimes also make a difference about how to do things.

 

Cheers

 

Gill

[Guest Squareman]

Gill, I'm glad I read this post of yours because I was actually going to ask you about 676's and CPV's.

 

I am due to get my PR in a month or so, and we intend on applying for a contributory visa for my MIL around Feb, March next year when we would have been here only a year, but can demonstrate that we are 'settled'. My MIL is back in South Africa, but we want to get her out on a 676 to cover the 'gap' as she hates it in South Africa. The question I was going to ask, was how applying for the 676 visa would impact on the CPV? I was always under the impression that they frowned upon attempts for parents to 'live' here before the CPV was granted. I wasn't sure which one to apply for first - the CPV or the 676 - as I didn't want to do anything to jeopardise the CPV. If you reckon that DIAC don't mind this happening (and especially considering that my MIL doesn't work) then I guess the timing doesn't really matter? She also has a house and car in South Africa, which I believe helps in convincing DIAC that she isn't packing up and moving over, so to speak, before the CPV is granted.

 

Any advice greatly appreciated, as always

[Gollywobbler]

Gill, I'm glad I read this post of yours because I was actually going to ask you about 676's and CPV's.

 

I am due to get my PR in a month or so, and we intend on applying for a contributory visa for my MIL around Feb, March next year when we would have been here only a year, but can demonstrate that we are 'settled'. My MIL is back in South Africa, but we want to get her out on a 676 to cover the 'gap' as she hates it in South Africa. The question I was going to ask, was how applying for the 676 visa would impact on the CPV? I was always under the impression that they frowned upon attempts for parents to 'live' here before the CPV was granted. I wasn't sure which one to apply for first - the CPV or the 676 - as I didn't want to do anything to jeopardise the CPV. If you reckon that DIAC don't mind this happening (and especially considering that my MIL doesn't work) then I guess the timing doesn't really matter? She also has a house and car in South Africa, which I believe helps in convincing DIAC that she isn't packing up and moving over, so to speak, before the CPV is granted.

 

Any advice greatly appreciated, as always

 

Hi Squareman

 

My mother would not have agreed to apply for her CPV unless I also ensured that she would be able to return to Oz without any delay in the meanwhile. She didn't really believe that she would get a CPV until it happened!

 

Before you apply for M-i-L's CPV, send an e-mail to parents@immi.gov.au and ask them how long they are taking to process CPVs? I've heard that the processing times are coming down from the 18-24 months that they have been taking, so by next Feb it might be that the Parents Visa Centre will be processing them in as little as 9 months. It is worth knowing how long it is likely to take.

 

Once you have lodged the CPV and you have received formal acknowledgement of lodgement from the PVC, make an application for a sc 676 Long Stay Tourist visa as soon as you like. Send a copy of the PVC's acknowledgement with it, plus a covering letter explaining that you want MIL to join you out in Oz as soon as possible.

 

There is a specfic Policy rule which says that when a Parent is waiting for a Parent visa application to be processed, s/he should be given a Tourist visa almost automatically.

 

In the covering letter, you can say that you realise that MIL will need to be outside Australia at the time when her CPV is granted. Fiji is probably the nearest place to Adelaide that is "outside Australia" and also cheap? But anywhere outside Oz that also has a DIAC office would do. A 7 or 10 night package holiday is usually the cheapest way to do it.

 

It is no sweat, visa-wise. I know loads of Parents who have done this, apart from but including my own mother.

 

Cheers

 

Gill

[Guest Squareman]

That's fantastic news, Gill. Thanks so much. I may apply for the 676 visa in the interim though, as opposed to waiting for Feb/Mar when we lodge the CPV. We actually need her here as a support base for us. My wife can't get a full time job at the mo because my son needs picking up from school etc

 

Thanks again - much appreciated

[HEAPS GOOD !!!]

Hi Squareman

 

My mother would not have agreed to apply for her CPV unless I also ensured that she would be able to return to Oz without any delay in the meanwhile. She didn't really believe that she would get a CPV until it happened!

 

Before you apply for M-i-L's CPV, send an e-mail to parents@immi.gov.au and ask them how long they are taking to process CPVs? I've heard that the processing times are coming down from the 18-24 months that they have been taking, so by next Feb it might be that the Parents Visa Centre will be processing them in as little as 9 months. It is worth knowing how long it is likely to take.

 

Once you have lodged the CPV and you have received formal acknowledgement of lodgement from the PVC, make an application for a sc 676 Long Stay Tourist visa as soon as you like. Send a copy of the PVC's acknowledgement with it, plus a covering letter explaining that you want MIL to join you out in Oz as soon as possible.

 

There is a specfic Policy rule which says that when a Parent is waiting for a Parent visa application to be processed, s/he should be given a Tourist visa almost automatically.

 

In the covering letter, you can say that you realise that MIL will need to be outside Australia at the time when her CPV is granted. Fiji is probably the nearest place to Adelaide that is "outside Australia" and also cheap? But anywhere outside Oz that also has a DIAC office would do. A 7 or 10 night package holiday is usually the cheapest way to do it.

 

It is no sweat, visa-wise. I know loads of Parents who have done this, apart from but including my own mother.

 

Cheers

 

Gill

 

 

:notworthy::notworthy:

 

 

 

HG

[Guest Squareman]

She's awesome...

[HEAPS GOOD !!!]

She's awesome...

 

A big big assett to have on the forum.

 

HG

[Gollywobbler]

That's fantastic news, Gill. Thanks so much. I may apply for the 676 visa in the interim though, as opposed to waiting for Feb/Mar when we lodge the CPV. We actually need her here as a support base for us. My wife can't get a full time job at the mo because my son needs picking up from school etc

 

Thanks again - much appreciated

 

Hi Squareman

 

Have you heard of Condition 8503 - No Further Stay? It is sometimes imposed when a subclass 676 Long Stay Tourist visa is granted.

 

The effect of 8503 is that, if it is imposed, your MIL would not be able to make a CPV application whilst her feet are on Aussie soil. She would have to go offshore for a week or so whilst the CPV application is lodged. This is true for both of the offshore CP visas, being the subclass 143 and the 173. It would also mean that she would NOT be able to apply for an onshore Contributory Aged Parent visa instead - but she might not be old enough for a CAPV anyway.

 

As long as you are aware of the possibility that 8503 might be imposed - so that you are prepared for the extra cost of sending MIL on holiday for a short while if necessary - it is not a major hassle. I just want to make sure that you are aware of it, that's all.

 

Cheers

 

Gill

[Guest Squareman]

Hi Gill

 

I was aware of the 'having to go offshore' thing, but I thought that only applied when the visa was granted? If she is in Oz on a 676 at the time the visa is granted, would she have to go offshore again? In terms of her age, she's only 56 so we can't go the Aged route.

 

I'm not sure what to do now. Are you saying that the best thing for her would be to be in South Africa at the time of lodging the CPV and then once lodged, we apply for a 676 visa at the same time?

[Gollywobbler]

Hi Gill

 

I was aware of the 'having to go offshore' thing, but I thought that only applied when the visa was granted? If she is in Oz on a 676 at the time the visa is granted, would she have to go offshore again? In terms of her age, she's only 56 so we can't go the Aged route.

 

I'm not sure what to do now. Are you saying that the best thing for her would be to be in South Africa at the time of lodging the CPV and then once lodged, we apply for a 676 visa at the same time?

 

Hi Squareman

 

http://www.immi.gov.au/media/fact-sheets/52bWaiving_Condition8503.htm

 

The Fact Sheet above may help to explain the effects of Condition 8503.

 

If MIL goes to Oz on a Tourist Visa that happens to have Condition 8503 imposed upon it, all that it means is that she will have to be outside Australia at the time when her CPV application is made as well as when the CPV is granted. "Outside Australia" means Fiji, NZ or wherever MIL chooses to go for a week or 10 days just so that you can attend to lodging the CPV application on her behalf.

 

Then when the Parents Visa Centre confirm that they will be able to grant the CPV as soon as you confirm that MIL has gone offshore, you just send MIL outside Australia for a short while again, just as you did at the time of the CPV application.

 

It is NOT a big deal and you should arrange all your other plans for MIL in whatever ways will suit her and your family best. It certainly isn't worth leaving her in South Africa for months on end when she would prefer to be in Oz with your family instead. She might merely have to nip offshore twice in connection with her CPV instead of only once, that's all.

 

I would suggest that you apply for the sc 676 Long Stay Tourist visa as soon as you are ready to do that. Once it is granted, you will then know whether or not Condition 8503 has been imposed. If it has then you and I can talk again nearer the time - when you are getting ready to lodge the CPV application - and we can plan the detailed logistics at that stage, I would suggest.

 

I stress that Condition 8503 is merely a minor procedural inconvenience but as long as you are aware of it and its effects, it is easy enough to arrange the logistics so that you can work round it.

 

Cheers

 

Gill

[Guest Squareman]

Aaaah, that makes sense. Thanks Gill.

[Misplaced]

Not wanting to hijack this thread but once we have made the move over to Oz my MIL wants to also make the move she's 70 (i think). Is the best/easiest thing for her to do is to apply for one of those Bridging Visa do da's when she come out for a holiday?

[Guest Squareman]

Gill is the expert, but I think it depends on which visa she goes for. The contributory parent visa, the one you pay a small fortune for, does not have an associated bridging visa. You are probably refered to the Aged Parent, which takes a decade or so to come through?

[Gollywobbler]

Not wanting to hijack this thread but once we have made the move over to Oz my MIL wants to also make the move she's 70 (i think). Is the best/easiest thing for her to do is to apply for one of those Bridging Visa do da's when she come out for a holiday?

 

Hi Misplaced

 

Because your MIL is over 65, she might become eligible for either the Contributory Aged Parent or the non-contributory Aged Parent visas. These 3 are "onshore" visas, meaning that the visa applicant has to be in Australia at the time when the application is made. In that situation there is no need to apply for a Bridging Visa because DIAC grant one automatically. For more detailed information, please study the thread below (preferably all of it because I update it whenever there is anything new to report.)

 

http://www.pomsinadelaide.com/forum/adelaide-migration-issues/4509-cheap-parent-visas-part-i.html

 

You need to study the DIAC web-pages about the Parent group of visas and it is also worth reading Booklet 3. None of it makes any sense to begin with but if you wrestle with it, it does then start to make sense, I found with my own mother! I've provided all the links in the thread above.

 

Will your MiL be OK on the Balance of Family Test, please? Also, is she in reasonably good health?

 

If she is OK on both of the points above, has she ever been to Australia before? If she hasn't then personally, I'd recommend at least one lengthy visit (6-12 months) before she does anything else, to give her a chance to make a really thoughtful, informed decision about whether she really wants to move to Oz for the rest of her life.

 

Please read the bumph and then shout again if you get stuck with any of it.

 

Cheers

 

Gill

[Misplaced]

Hi Gill,

 

Her health is not too bad. She had breast cancer about 5 years ago and has been clear since. She also has arthritis. Would the health part be a stumbling point?

 

On the point of whether she would like it 'she has already made her mind up'!!! It's been a dream of hers since she was young.

[Guest Squareman]

Hi Gill

 

I wrote to that email address you gave regarding processing times and I appear to have been sent an automated response to say that it will take 2 years for the CPV. :-(

[Gollywobbler]

Hi Gill

 

I wrote to that email address you gave regarding processing times and I appear to have been sent an automated response to say that it will take 2 years for the CPV. :-(

 

Hi Squareman

 

What they've told you doesn't surprise me. DIAC always quote very pessimistic timescales so that nobody will be disappointed. The applicants vary enormously about how efficient they are.

 

It has been taking around 18-24 months to do the whole thing from start to finish but most people have been hearing from a CO about 15 or 16 months after lodging the application. How long it takes after that depends on the applicant more than anything else.

 

However DIAC told the Senate Estimates Committee recently that they are seeing a marked drop in the numbers of new CPV applications.

 

http://www.aph.gov.au/hansard/senate/commttee/s39.pdf

 

It is somewhere in the Hansard of the Hearing but I don't have time to wade through the whole thing.

 

DIAC weren't fibbing, though. For the 2011/2012 Program Year they have reduced the total quota of CPVs from 7,500 to 6,500. Since the CPV is one of their best inventions as a money-spinner, they wouldn't have reduced the quota unless the demand has fallen off quite sharply. There is no point in having a quota that is higher than the number of applications you expect to receive.

 

It'll probably take another 6 months or so before we start seeing a drop in the waiting times between lodging a CPV application and hearing from a CO but I think it will definitely happen.

 

http://www.chireckles.com/cpv/tracker.php

 

Steve's CPV tracker website above is informal but it has enough contributors to give one a fairly beady idea about how long the applications have been taking lately.

 

Cheers

 

Gill

[Gollywobbler]

Hi Gill,

 

Her health is not too bad. She had breast cancer about 5 years ago and has been clear since. She also has arthritis. Would the health part be a stumbling point?

 

On the point of whether she would like it 'she has already made her mind up'!!! It's been a dream of hers since she was young.

 

Hi Craig

 

In that case, I'd be inclined to think about an onshore Contributory Aged Parent if MIL's finances will permit that or a non-contributory onshore Aged Parent sc 804 visa if the money is tight.

 

I'm not a doctor or even a nurse. DIAC work on the principle that if an old lady's ailments are not likely to cost the Aussie Welfare State more than about $21,000 AUD during her first 3 years as a Permanent Resident then there is nothing the matter with the visa applicant's health.

 

There isn't usually a problem with a cancer if the person has been clear of it for 5 years. With arthritis, I guess the question would be whether the elderly lady needs hip replacement surgery or similar. Ideally, though, you would need to get MiL's doctor to study the relevant medical tomes (see below.)

 

There are 19 new tomes called Notes for Guidance of the MOC. One is about Oncology, another is about Ophthalmology and so forth. These new tomes were supposed to be "published" [ie hidden] on Legend by no later than July 2010 according to Dr Douglas, who is the Chief Medical Officer of the Commonwealth. It didn't happen. I heard that there was a "delay" in securing the Royal Australasian College of Physicians' approval of the new tomes. I don't know whether it was genuinely an Admin delay or whether the RACP had rubbished the new tomes and refused to endorse them. The RACP despise DIAC and they wouldn't hesitate to refuse to endorse something that they think is medical rubbish.

 

http://www.immi.gov.au/business-services/legend/

 

The Joint Standing Committee on Migration had a go at DIAC and the Government last year about this idea of hiding the new medical tomes on Legend. The JSCM insist that the tomes should all be publicly and freely available via the DIAC website. I agree. The Aussie taxpayer has forked out $3 million AUD for the 19 new tomes so they definitely shouldn't be hidden away. They are NOT "freely available" via Legend because it costs a fortune to buy a subscription to Legend, plus Legend is not user friendly, whereas the DIAC website is very user friendly. However DIAC will bleat about the "costs" of publishing the tomes on the main DIAC website so I don't know which way the Government will jump about that.

 

Clearly, though, people like you should be able to ask MIL's GP to read the relevant tomes and tell you whether the GP thinks the tomes say anything that is likely to prove to be problematic for the visa applicant. There is no point in DIAC's cloak & dagger nonsense about the medical stuff.

 

I've got a copy of the old one about Oncology - that was published on paper in circa 1995, so it says on the cover. A lay-person hasn't got a hope of understanding it but I know a Professor of Oncology socially, so I asked him to have a look. He said it was hopelessly out of date by 2010 but otherwise it was quite good. He said he'd need to see the new one to see whether the new one reflects all the improvements in Oncology during the last few years. That idea was a non-starter because neither he or I are going to fork out for a sub to Legend.

 

I managed to get the Aussie High Commission in London to agree that if asked, they will help out via copying and pasting some of the contents of one of these new tomes. It is kind of them to offer but I don't think they could do it adequately. The tomes are not PDF files or even Word documents. They are full of inter-active hyperlinks to other documents (must be a computer lingo called Webspeak, I imagine.) Plus the old one on Oncology is 30 pages long. It is nonsense to imagine that a lay-person would be able to figure out which bits to copy & paste and in the highly unlikely event of getting that bit right, one would still end up with a two-dimensional document in which the hyperlinks wouldn't work.

 

It is just far too risky for a lay person to mess about with the medical tomes in this way. It is really only adequate and safe if one can make the whole of the interactive tome available to the visa applicant's doctor and leave the doctor to figure it out. So I totally agree with the JSCM, plus the Law Institute of Victoria and the many other knowledgeable Aussie worthies who insist that these tomes must be published on the DIAC website regardless of silly bleatings about "cost." It costs a fortune to whinge and make excuses for not doing something, after all......

 

Grrrr.

 

Gill

[Guest Squareman]

Hi Gill

 

I can see by Steve's tracker that the last few applicants have waited a little over a year, which is a good thing! I also see that many choose not to make use of agents and don't appear to have been delayed in any way as a result of 'going it alone.' This is all good news!

 

Thanks again!

[Gollywobbler]

Hi Gill

 

I can see by Steve's tracker that the last few applicants have waited a little over a year, which is a good thing! I also see that many choose not to make use of agents and don't appear to have been delayed in any way as a result of 'going it alone.' This is all good news!

 

Thanks again!

 

Hi Squareman

 

I am impressed! When I look at the tracker I just "see" a jumble of numbers, get disheartened and give up! I had heard that the waiting times are dropping and it sounds like they are already dropping quite substantially, which is excellent news!

 

Have you studied the Contributory Parents thread in the sticky thred part of the Migration Issues section of the Poms in Oz forum? If not, the thread is quite lively, with the contrinutors all telling each other what to expect next. They know because they did it themselves last month and so forth.

 

There is no real need to use a migration agent for a CPV application. Getting the application ready is tedious and laborious but it is not difficult and it is going to be tedious and laborious whether or not an agent is involved.

 

I've had Parents asking me to do their CPV applications for them and offering to pay me for doing it. I just say, "No." I'm not a migration agent and I'm not interested in all of their rellies and the saga about whatever they've been doing ever since they left school (one of the joys in Form 80.) They can deal with it by themselves if they try, which I think it a much better idea. It is remarkable how they discover a latent streak of self-reliance when I tell them to do it by themselves!

 

One old boy was 82. He's a darling and he and his wife have become personal buddies of mine. He's a retired Bank Manager and is perfectly compos mentis. I saw no reason why I should try to fill out forms for him in my spare time from my day job when he had all day to deal with them on his own. I felt a bit brutal but I was not prepared to take his money under what I felt would be false pretences, and I was not interested in all his deceased rellies - my mother's were bad enough and she was 84!

 

Although I felt a bit curmudgeonly and brutal because of the gentleman's age, I was delighted to watch him blossom. He really got stuck iinto the whole thing, did it with great care and he began to take charge of his own destiny. He became confident about their visa application and he could clearly do the whole thing by himself. I was really pleased to see that.

 

My sister and I dealt with Mum's CPV application between us - but then again, she's Mum! Also, my mental survival depended on not letting Mum interfere. She's the type who would want an International Committee Meeting in order to complete Question 6 and then another one for Question 8. That gets too painful. So I did most of it and told her, "Sign here, please." That was the easiest and quickest way. Then she couldn't remember exactly when her dead siblings were born or when they died. I thought "Sod it. They're dead anyway so they won't be applying for visas." My sister and I had a bit of a chat and agreed what dates to put. Why on earth DIAC want to know about dead rellies is beyond me!

 

Cheers

 

Gill

[Guest Squareman]

LOL - too true, Gill!

 

I'll keep an eye on the CPV forums. The good thing is that I'll get plenty of experience applying for my MIL, so that when I (hopefully) get to apply for my own parents in around 5 years time, I'll have it all sussed. I don't know if they would ever make it out here, but we are certainly going to try. It will take my clingy sister to leave 'mum and dad' for 3 years and settle here, and even if that happens, god knows what South Africa will look like by then and if my parents will even be able to sell their house to afford the fees to come over. If they do, what money will they left with and will my mother's rheumatoid arthritis prevent her from coming in? These are all questions which will be answered over time......

[jtct]

Hi Gill

 

I wrote to that email address you gave regarding processing times and I appear to have been sent an automated response to say that it will take 2 years for the CPV. :-(

 

 

2 Years is probably the longest it would take. Mind you, with the £/$ situation and worsening property sales market in the UK fewer people seem to be applying now

 

When we applied in May 2010 (application approved May started the paperwork at end of March 6 weeks before) we were told the same but we had a good agent and we responded promptly to complete each stage when asked - got our Visa just 13 months later! We may be the exception to the rule but 15-18 months seems to be the average now.

 

Good luck - its worth it in the end

[Guest Squareman]

Great stuff! thanks