Best day ever!

[Guest Woody and Jane]

This morning we woke up to an email from DIAC, our 176 visa has been granted!!! Finally the months of checking online everyday for status changes in our application have come to the happiest of endings.

 

I have a few things that I'd like to mention about the whole process which someone someday may find useful:

 

Using a migration agent

We didn't use one as we wanted to save money and to be honest had we used one I can only imagine that it would have slowed the whole process down.

 

Not getting a case officer

We used the online visa tracking site and it was this site that told us about when to have our medicals. The site updated saying all our tests had been received but the two forms (the medical and chest x-ray) were still showing as required. We assumed this was becasue marking it as received would trigger the next request for police checks. Believing this we went ahead and had our police checks done and scanned and emailed them to DIAC, I believe this is called front loading??? Anyway the site didn't show that the police checks were received and still no sign of a case officer! When we received the notification that our application had been successful only then did we know the name of our case officer which as far as we can tell must have been assigned on the day the visa was granted and becasue we'd already uploaded everything and had nothing to do but grant the visa! Yey.

 

Trying to contact DIAC

Forget it. We tried to contact them via the tracking site twice. We received our first reply two months after we sent it and are still waiting for the second reply to an email we sent in April. I guess if we'd used an agent they could have probably answered our questions but this is the chance you take going it alone.

 

Poms in Adelaide

This site and everyone on it are great! We couldn't have done it without you. It's an invaluable source info and support. Keep up the good work everyone!

 

 

We hope to be over there in early November just in time for a real summer with sunshine and everything.

 

Thanks to all!

 

Woody & Jane

 

Skills assessment in Nursing sent - 09/01/09

Positive skills assessment received from ANMC - 24/03/09

E logged 175 visa application - 08/04/09

Applied to NBSA for registration - 14/04/09

Medicals done and sent - 08/05/09

Registration with NBSA confirmed - 28/05/09

Police checks received - 15/06/09

Applied for SA State Sponsorship - 30/06/09

State sponsorship received - 10/07/09

House sold - 11/07/09

State sponsorship granted - 24/07/09

Visa changed to 176 - 27/07/09

Visa granted - 31/07/09

[Guest mayjess]

Congratulations to you, its the best ever feeling isnt it? weight off your shoulders until you start planning the actual move now!

 

Mayjess

[tean]

Well done for getting your visa. Great post and very informative. Can I ask why you changed from a 175 to a 176 and what the benefit of this was?

Are you general nursing and do you have a job lined up?

Congratualtions again!

[Guest Woody and Jane]

Well done for getting your visa. Great post and very informative. Can I ask why you changed from a 175 to a 176 and what the benefit of this was?

Are you general nursing and do you have a job lined up?

Congratualtions again!

The initial reason for the switch was because Jane started to panic about not having the 3 years experience required for the 10 points you get for it. We thought we might be able to argue that her 3 year nursing degree would count towards her experience but fearing the worst decided to switch to the 176 which requires less points.

 

As it happens the day we decided to switch everyone that wasn't on a 175, was state sponsored or employer sponsored got told their application would not be processed until 2010. Posts on here said that priority was being given to employer sponsored, state sponsored and finally 175s. We switched in order to be "bumped" up the queue and as far as we can tell it worked.

 

As we were planning on moving to Adelaide anyway going for state sponsorship wouldn't affect our plans, we initially liked the idea of the 175 because we would have the freedom to live anywhere in Oz. Switching costs nothing and we had our visa within weeks of doing it. I can't recommend it enough. The only catch is you have to live in SA for two years, err OK! You also have to keep in regular contact with them but apparently we can get reduced one way airline prices, extra baggage, on arrival accomodation and someone to show you around and help you get settled.

 

Hope this helps

 

Woody & Jane.

[Guest marco]

Congratulations. We got ours on Wednesday.

 

One thing that I would add though is that people seem to be reluctant to contact DIAC, but I phoned them on Tuesday to explain that we were due to exchange contracts on our house sale shortly, and they were very helpful and told me they would send the case officer a message to explain our situation. The next day, the visa was granted!

 

Good luck with the move.

 

Marc and Gillian

[Guest The Dimmocks]

Congratulations on your visa and all the best with your move.

[Guest Woody and Jane]

Congratulations. We got ours on Wednesday.

 

One thing that I would add though is that people seem to be reluctant to contact DIAC, but I phoned them on Tuesday to explain that we were due to exchange contracts on our house sale shortly, and they were very helpful and told me they would send the case officer a message to explain our situation. The next day, the visa was granted!

 

Good luck with the move.

 

Marc and Gillian

 

That's good advice, we were always scared to contact them as it basically said only contact them if it's an emergency. Some emergency with a two month turnaround time for replies. We moved house into a rental but didn't want to tell them in case anything went wrong and the confirmation got sent to the old address but as we have redirected our post we didn't think it mattered. Turns out we received our confirmation via email so it really didn't matter even if we'd moved to Timbuktu.

[Guest Woody and Jane]

Well done for getting your visa. Great post and very informative. Can I ask why you changed from a 175 to a 176 and what the benefit of this was?

Are you general nursing and do you have a job lined up?

Congratualtions again!

 

Sorry, totally didn't answer your second question. Yes Jane is a staff nurse in Manchester. She's not applied for a job yet as was initially told that until you have your visa there's no point applying for jobs. Being a nurse we're hoping (maybe naively) that Jane will be snapped up.

 

I guess the journey has only just begun regarding getting a job. We're taking the weekend off to soak up/panic about the fact we've actually been granted our visa!!!

 

My work have acted with shock to me handing in my notice this morning. There is a chance they'd like to keep me on in my role which would be ace as I wouldn't have to find a job but am now worried that if I stick with my current job and work from home while in Adelaide I won't make any new friends. I'm a web/application developer so can technically work from anywhere but I think making new friends is very important when moving out of your comfort zone.

 

Any horror film loving, Star Wars/Trek diggin', wolf like dog loving peeps out there?

[Guest CHORLEY GIRL]

Congratulations, great feeling isn't it. We can't wait to get out there the next few months are really going to drag! Good luck with all your plans.

 

Jo and Tom x

[Guest Woody and Jane]

Its the best feeling ! good luck to you too x