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10 Tips for submitting your Partner Visa application ONLINE

6K views 15 replies 9 participants last post by  ampk 
#1 ·
So we finally submitted our application yesterday! YAY us!!

We had read a lot about the Partner Visa on this forum, the Immi website and various other blogs before we started our application but none of those posts dealt with the Online application process which is very new. So I thought I'd give some tips.

[NOTE: we submitted a Defacto Partner Visa application from outside Australia - i.e. visa Subclass 309/100 - so some of these details and forms I mention might be different to yours]

The way the online submission works is:
- Create an Immi Account
- Fill in your forms online
- Pay online via credit card
- you get an acknowledgement email immediately after payment.
- The email above opens a new section in your ImmiAccount that enables you to start submitting your Evidence documents online.
- attach your Evidence docs.
All online 'Proof' documents have to be colour-scans, J-pegs format and less than 500kb otherwise the system doesn't accept them. Setting your DPI to 96 when saving is a help to reduce document size. Some places in the Immi website say that you have submit certified copies and some say you just have to scan in the original documents, so it was a bit contradictory. We scanned our certified copies and attached them.

Here are my tips:

1. Apply for your Criminal Checks (ie Police Clearance/Penal Certificate - whatever your country calls it) NOW. They take ages. And, if you are applying outside Australia you may need one for BOTH partners as you each need them for any country that you have lived in for more than 12 months in the last 10 years.
The medical examinations are not such a big issue as the new online process only requires you to provide proof that you have booked a check, you don't have to actually do the check-up before submitting an application - and it guides through exactly how and where to make a booking.

2. Print out paper versions of your forms by downloading them from the Immi website and use them as a guide to start collecting the information you need. Once you have everything you can simply 'data-capture' your information onto your online application. The reason for this is that the online forms are not indexed - ie to get to Page 8, you need to click "Next" at the bottom of pages 1 to 7 in order to get there. Many of the forms are more than twenty pages. This requires each page to load, then go onto the next one. With the website instability and slowness, trying to log in and get back to the place you were at previously is VERY time-consuming, so try and do it all in one go.

3. Bookmark the login page for your ImmiAccount. The link to create an ImmiAccount is in the Immi website but it's not easy to find. The best way to find it was to Google ImmiAccount, it always comes up first. We probably did this a hundred times before we eventually bookmarked it. You need to keep coming back to your forms to your account to submit more info so you need to find the login page - rather bookmark it now.

4. WRITE DOW your password! Or store it in your computer by clicking "remember this password" as soon as you create the account. You will need it regularly and their Forgot My Password function is NOT simple or quick to respond.

5. Click their SAVE button after every page or section. We found the website was quite slow and highly unstable with pages often freezing or closing by themselves and then the information we had added wasn't stored. These glitches will probably get sorted out eventually but until then … SAVE !! It took us TWELVE HOURS to fill in Form 40SP due to website issues so you need to have patience.

6. There is NO online support. The Immi website has an FAQ section but NO support if you are getting error messages or anything else odd. We spent hours searching the Immi website for a support desk so let me save you the time. If one of your pages gets an error message when submitting a page - and we encountered several - try re-typing information, deleting or closing the page and trying again etc.

7. Your partner cannot submit form 47SP until you have submitted your entire form 40SP. There was a section in one of their guides that made us think that we could each complete our own forms at the same time. So we had both created Immi Accounts and were each completing our forms. However my set of forms kept kicking out a frustrating "data cannot be verified, please check information" error message whenever I tried to submit it. Eventually once my partner had submitted her forms, mine were able to submit. We realised that the applications are electronically linked and the system would not accept the other set of forms until the Applicant had submitted theirs.

8. Something which we hadn't seen mentioned on ANY other blogpost is that the online form asks for ALL your relatives date of birth, marital status AND wedding dates!! (it specifies siblings, step-siblings, siblings-in law, parents, step-parents and children but not in-laws, grandparents, aunts, uncles ) If they are deceased, you need to fill in their date of passing. We thought we had small families until we started adding step-siblings and siblings-in-law! Although we knew most of our families birthdays, it took us several days to contact everyone and get them to send us their wedding dates, then when were filling in our applications, we landed up trying to find their various texts, emails and voicemails replies. Nightmare! So start now and keep a record of their dates on your paper forms as they come in.

9. Another question, which we hadn't seen anyone else write about, asks for both partners to give details of their past relationships. This includes birthdays of your ex's, as well as as the dates you got together and broke up! If you think you has several "uhmm…?" moments when you tried to remember your and your current partners dates, just wait til you have to remember 'that bastard that kissed my best friend in 2002's birthday!! :confused: Make sure you WRITE these dates down as you have to fill them in on both partners forms. The online process doesn't allow you to be vague here, it requires DAY, Month and YEAR for every ex. We landed up having to estimate a lot of these dates, particularly as we aren't friends with some of our exes on Facebook and couldn't really remember their birthdays, let alone the dates we broke up. Then two days later when fill in in the hoers partners forms, we realised we had forgotten what we had estimated and will have inconsistancies between the two forms. :eek: Although Im sure a sympathetic CO would understand this at interview, it makes be very uncomfortable to have discrepancies.

10. Be organised, have patience and persevere!

Good Luck! (And keep holding thumbs for us!)
 
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#2 · (Edited)
Thank You!!

Great post LizBee!!! :)
Gave me a lot of information. Online application for me are a huge mystery as I submitted a paper application and post like yours provide such a great insight into this whole procedure.
Thanks a lot for putting in your valuable time :)
Good Luck and I hope you get a speedy grant.

Kind Regards,
Becky
 
#3 ·
Good post, Liz, though actually all of this is covered on the forum in some form - not all in one place, though. :) However, I disagree with a few of your tips here:

#1 - With most countries' processing times (including low-risk countries) around or past 12 months now, doing a police check in advance is probably not such a good idea in most countries since there's a good chance of having to do it over again since they're only valid for 12 months. Also, "front-loading" is no longer a definite way to speed up processing.

#3 - Bookmarking isn't a bad idea, but the link to "Manage Your Online Applications" is on the immi.gov.au front page.

#7 - You have these backwards. You have to start with the applicant's application (47SP) and then do the sponsor's (40SP) once you have the TRN from the applicant's application being submitted.

#9 - That question is only asking about de facto (living together), engaged or married relationships, not every single relationship you've ever had.

The rest is good advice. :)
 
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#4 ·
Hi Collecge girl.

Thanks for you reply! Sorry if I confused the forms!

The Criminal check seems to be a catch-22 - our ImmiAccount requires that we attach it but doesn't stipulate a date to do it. We were also concerned about it expiring but there was no information indicating if they will process our application without it? Any idea?
Regarding the previous relationships issue - we had also thought what you did - i.e. only Defacto's or Marriages, but the pop-up box gave options of Never Married/Defacto/Engaged/Married/Divorced (and I think some others). We were a bit thrown by the 'Never Married' option and also the way the question was worded - "Have you been in any other relationships". So we filled in all previous serious relationships. Oh well, possibly our CO will have a laugh!
 
#5 ·
Yeah, a lot of the help/popup text in the ImmiAccount is useless (at best) and inaccurate/misleading at worst. It's really frustrating.

All Partner Visa applications will show that police checks and medicals are required. When they are ready for you to do them, they will email you if you haven't done them yet. This usually happens several months in to your processing time.
 
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#6 ·
Hi Lizbed,

Regarding police checks. They will email you and ask for them when they request the medicals. We got an email late June telling us that we would be getting a case officer soon and to obtain police clearances and medicals if haven't already done so. We had the FBI clearance, but not the AFP check or the medical. We just applied for those then attached the receipt acknowledging that we have applied for them (set a date in the case of the medical).
 
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#7 ·
Also, regarding past relationships, I only included my past marriage, since we were together since I was 18. I had boyfriends prior to him, and I dated briefly after him, before meeting my current husband, but didn't include them. I suppose it would be subjective as to what you would consider a serious relationship.

I don't think it hurts to include all your relationships, but I don't think it's necessary as such. I think they require the information to see if you're someone capable of serious relationships that are long-term. Also that you're not involved, through a previous marriage, to any group or association that may be a threat to Australia's security. You're unlikely to have those ties to someone you were only in a superficial relationship with. So those sorts of relationships are less important.
 
#8 ·
Police checks are cheap and my advise is do them soon after application submitted, unlike medicals you get to see them, if any strange stuff appears on it you can sort it - most importantly you will then know how long it will take to get.

Medicals is different and if finances permit, do as police check above but a few months later about 3-6 I think. Then all is in the hands of the gods. BUT know your expiry dates and re supply in advance - never leave an excuses to leave your file to the next inline.

Another tip is scan short notes into the PDF (or other) as a header to explain anything if needed.

Next tip in header request confirmation it has been received by them - this can be helpful at later dates if you need to use the MRT.
 
#9 ·
I'd also add that you should print off a copy of your online application as you are going along as one of the upgrades wiped out some of the information I'd input. Luckily I'd printed out the application to date and was able to recreate the information quickly.

I really like the idea of a NOTES pdf and am going to blatantly steal that idea!! Thanks ampk!
 
#10 ·
I'd also add that you should print off a copy of your online application as you are going along as one of the upgrades wiped out some of the information I'd input. Luckily I'd printed out the application to date and was able to recreate the information quickly.

I really like the idea of a NOTES pdf and am going to blatantly steal that idea!! Thanks ampk!
I second this.. I have everything I've uploaded to the ImmiAccount on my computer and a secondary paper copy just in case.
 
#11 ·
Regarding #8, you only need those details (wedding dates etc etc) for DEPENDENT family members. Not just your general family. There are two sections in the online form for adding family information. The part that asks you for all those details is for dependent family members only. There is another section for general family members and it doesn't require as much information.

See this thread for more info
http://www.australiaforum.com/visas-immigration/44730-820-801-online-application-issues.html
 
#12 ·
Perhaps that was the case when you applied? I'm not sure. But by the time we applied a couple of months later, they definitely DID ask that about non-dependent family members. I went back to the printout of the application I submitted just to make sure I was remembering correctly. On Page 6 of that application (page numbers might not be the same for all of us, but perhaps they are) it has a section for "Migrating Family Members," "Non-Migrating Dependent Family Members," and "Applicant's Immediate Family Members." Obviously the first two cover dependents (either migrating or not), and the third one covers immediately family members who aren't dependent. In that section, it asks if the applicant has any parents, siblings or children. When you tick "Yes," it says to give the details of all of them including those deceased. When you enter details for them, it asks for birth date and marital status. If you tick "married" for one of them it asks for date of marriage. If you tick "divorced" or "separated," it doesn't ask for a date.

If you printed out your application when you submitted it, you can go back and look for yourself - there's SUCH a mass of information you have to include that it would be easy and completely understandable to mis-remember a question.

On the other hand, if yours doesn't say that, it's possible they changed it - but I seem to remember people complaining about that question from the time the system started. :)
 
#16 ·
We were required all wedding dates too, we got most and guessed the rest. Then added a word doc addressed notes for Case Officer to explain why it was guessed, that note also was my overseas travel history "the best I can read from the bad stamps in m passports" - the system crashed after I think 12 overseas entries, so I just put 1 year on the form and all 30+ entries in the word doc.

They need a notes section on each page of form so you can proceed, or a doc notes for Case Officer.

The word doc explanation under "other" seems to be ok with them.(?)
 
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