Visa agency versus yourself

[Guest flowertowers]

Hi, wonder what peoples opinions are for complete their visa applications. I have seen lots of agency's do this but wondered if you went down this route or completed it yourself for saving money?

 

So many websites to look at that unsure where I should start!

 

If you used an agency please advise which ones are good.

 

Thanks

[ianb]

firstly it would depend on your visa and how confident you are in having and getting all the information they need. If your points are close to the target and there are any complications the agency can be worth every penny. Some jobs like nursing from what i have read can be more straight forward (only from what i have read on here and in no way a slur on all the superb nurses out there!!!) as its done slightly different i believe?

Many people do go it alone and many are succesful and respect for going that way.

We went through GoMatilda who we found great as we would not have been confident enough to do ourselfs

[Guest Trakki]

We did it ourselves but I am a nurse and as ian said things are a bit easier. We did a PR 175 visa. The visa application itself is dead straught forward whatever profession. The hard part is the skill assessment part. For nurses it is straight forward but for other professions a lot more complicated and an agent I think is helpful in this situation. For us using an agent would have been a waste of money. What visa are you going for and what profession do you do? That may help others to advise you.

 

HTH

[HEAPS GOOD !!!]

Hi, wonder what peoples opinions are for complete their visa applications. I have seen lots of agency's do this but wondered if you went down this route or completed it yourself for saving money?

 

So many websites to look at that unsure where I should start!

 

If you used an agency please advise which ones are good.

 

Thanks

 

We did ours on our own, and it was not easy i had to get PR of mrs kids, i had hassle on meds, had a non migrating child, mrs smashed her leg up, lots of info gathering.

 

we used a variety of forums and websites to gather information, we tried to predict the questions that we were going to be asked and we passed it all ourselves, it was not easy lots of chasing things up, typing phone calls emails etc etc.

 

give us a shout should you want any help.

 

We reckon we saved ourselves £2000 by doing it alone.

[Guest flowertowers]

Thanks for your replies. OH is a motor mechanic, and me well I work for NHS but on the Administrative side. I keep looking at different websites. I need to sit down with OH and go through stuff. We have done the points scoring and got enough there. I just start reading all different threads then get nervous about the big move so kind of go back to stage 1!

[Guest flowertowers]

And Thank you for offer of help/advice. Saving approx 2k is a lot of money so that's something I need to think about.

 

Cheers

[Guest Lisado]

Hi there

 

We are using Go Matilda and from a personal point of vew our agent has been fantastic. She is really on the ball. They are also cheaper than other agents we looked at. We are going over on the 475 visa which is why we went through an agent.

 

Lisa

[Guest BAZnDAF]

Maybe another mechanic can confirm, but I think you have to go the VETASSES route, which I beleive for some people has been difficult in getting all the necessary documents together. It all depends on the qualifications your OH has. If he has no recognised qualifications then he may have to write down everything he has done since starting his career, this is the part I beleive is the pain, as you may have to go into every single bit of detail, and thats where an agent can be worth their weight in gold. I have not had to do this as mine was for IT through the ACS assessment. Others on here will have more details.

 

might be worth seeing if an agent will do only the assessment side of the application, allowing you to do the online visa application side of things. That may reduce the cost as well. My Agent offered that option, but considering the whole lot was only costing £1200 I decided to let him do it all, less hassle for me.

 

Good luck with the process.

 

Barry

[Guest familygood]

Hi

 

We are doing it by ourselves but got some initial help from liveinaustralia.com who for about £300 have advised us exactly how many points we do have, told us which visa to go for, told us which documents are needed and give you a form filler programme you can use to help fill out all the forms. You then get 180 days to question a migration advisor - you get 3 questions per day and they answer you within 24 hours. We have found it really useful and have answered all our little questions that we have had along the way. Our advisor days are nearly up but we will still have all the advice and the form filler help. Its a much cheaper way of doing things! We can now buy extra advice either by phone call or extra questions. Might be a good option?

 

This site is invaluable too!!

 

Emma

[Gollywobbler]

Thanks for your replies. OH is a motor mechanic, and me well I work for NHS but on the Administrative side. I keep looking at different websites. I need to sit down with OH and go through stuff. We have done the points scoring and got enough there. I just start reading all different threads then get nervous about the big move so kind of go back to stage 1!

 

 

Hiya

 

About 50% of contributors to the forums go it alone and very few come unstuck, so don't allow any Agents to frighten you with a load of baloney and/or pomposity. The "qualification" course to become a migration agent is a crash course that can be completed in one semester and is the equivalent of AQF II at best. A "qualification" level which would not get any of their clients into Australia, bluntly.

 

However, you CANNOT do a DIY application accurately or adequately unless you stick to the relevant Government websites only and exclusively for your information.

 

Let us break this down into its component parts.

 

Skills Assessment

 

You say that Hubby is a Motor Mechanic. What sort of vehicles? Cars or trucks and other heavy machinery?

 

The occupation is here:

 

http://www.immi.gov.au/asri/occupations/m/motor-mechanic-4211-11.htm

 

The detailed, authoritative description of the occupation is here:

 

http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/0/0B035FE0A04B4498CA25697E00185160?opendocument

 

If Hubby is not 100% certain that he is what the Aussies call a "Motor Mechanic", ask him whether he is a Diesel Fitter-Mechanic or similar instead:

 

http://www.immi.gov.au/asri/occupations/f/fitter-4112-11.htm

 

http://www.abs.gov.au/Ausstats/abs@.nsf/0/4630BBB2B1964D79CA25697E00185123?opendocument

 

If he is still not sure, the acid test is here:

 

http://www.vetassess.com.au/index.cfm?menu=1.3a#tsa_downloads

 

Get him to download the self-assessment tool for both types of Motor Mechanic. How many of the boxes can he tick "yes" to with confidence?

 

(I've just been helping a Poms in Oz member with this! He is a marine mechanic. We scratched our heads. He doesn't know about wheels, brakes or road gearboxes plus Vetassess say that they cannot assess marine engineering skills. He turned out to be a Diesel Fitter-Mechanic when we investigated more closely! That fits him to a tee whereas we were having a heckuva job to fit him into a truck or a tractor!)

 

If Hubby genuinely is one or other type of Motor Mechanic, the next thing is where do you live because that determines whether the skills assessment authority is Vetassess or TRA? England, Scotland, Wales or N.Ireland = Vetassess. Everywhere else = TRA (with the possible exception of the Channel Islands about which we would need to enquire. They have a peculiar legal status but I know how to work it out if need be,)

 

Please could you confirm where you live (and what Hubby actually is) and then I can help you to work out the next bit of the process.

 

Cheers

 

Gill

[Guest flowertowers]

Hi, Thanks for the reply, really really helpful.

 

Husband is a Volkswagen/Audi mechanic and we live in England, Kent to be precise!

 

Ok I will speak to him later on and we can look at the links. Thanks again for your help.

[Guest hel&sam]

We've done it ourselves so far, simons a maintenance engineer, i'm a radiographer. lots to fill in and info to find but i think if you're straightforward enough points wise its not too complicated, more time consuming. the hardest bit was the skills assessments, mine was straightforward enough but simons had quite a few jobs in 20 odd years so it was time consuming getting it all together for his TRA application. i'm not sure how an agent would have helped really because we'd have still had to provide him with all the details. theres always loads of help on here, look into it all and see how confident you are.

Good luck

[Gollywobbler]

Hi, Thanks for the reply, really really helpful.

 

Husband is a Volkswagen/Audi mechanic and we live in England, Kent to be precise!

 

Ok I will speak to him later on and we can look at the links. Thanks again for your help.

 

 

Hiya

 

Thanks for this. I think we can safely say that Hubby is a Motor Mechanic and that he needs to focus on the Light Vehicle download because the skills assessment authority will be Vetassess.

 

http://www.vetassess.com.au/index.cfm?menu=1.3a

 

http://www.vetassess.com.au/download/offshore/Competency%20group%20documents/Motor%20Mechanic%20(Light)/Self-assessment%20tool%20-%20Motor%20Mechanic%20(Light).pdf

 

So far, so good. If you want to think about the DIY possibility then you MUST read every word of the Vetassess stuff, make sure you understand it all and make sure you comply with it all. If you do not feel confident about doing that by yourselves then it would suggest that you would feel more comfortable if you bite the costs-bullet and hire an Agent to give you a hand with it all.

 

The next step is to consider whether you would be eligible for a subclass 175 visa because if you score 120 points or more for a subclass 175 then you would also get enough points for a subclass 176 or 475 visa instead if need be. The Vetassess process takes 4-6 months and you cannot apply for the visa until Hubby has obtained a positive skills assessment anyway. The main thing with the visas at present is simply to tot up your points and ensure that you would be OK on the points. If in doubt, assume no points. That is the safe way to do it.

 

The Points test for the 175 visa is here:

 

http://www.immi.gov.au/skilled/general-skilled-migration/175/eligibility-applicant.htm'>http://www.immi.gov.au/skilled/general-skilled-migration/175/eligibility-applicant.htm

 

The occupation is worth 60 points.

 

Please also see:

 

http://www.immi.gov.au/skilled/general-skilled-migration/175/

 

http://www.immi.gov.au/allforms/booklets/books6.htm

 

Best wishes

 

Gill

[Guest flowertowers]

Hi again

 

Thanks ever so for your help with the info. Really useful and now we know where to start! Think I will be spending the weekend printing off and reading for hubby to complete etc!

 

I will keep you posted/ask for advice too!