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New Member Starting Her Visa Journey

2K views 7 replies 4 participants last post by  latif 
#1 ·
Hi. :D

My fiance of six years and I are starting our visa journey soon and I thought I would join this forum which has been a great help to us and will continue to help us over the coming years. I am Irish and he is a PR of Australia.

We are currently gathering the information we need to start a PMV as we feel it works best for us as we have not lived together for 12 months consecutively. We met online when we were younger and after staying friends for years and making a few visits, we have gotten engaged and are ready to settle down together.

I am eager to get our application sorted and applied for and to start the waiting game. :(
 
#3 ·
Thanks for your reply! :)

My fiance is sitting down on Wednesday to go through all the literature and then we are going to power through our application. We want to have it done and ready to submit by November. I am currently enrolled in a degree which is finishing up in May and so I would be ready to move any time after that. I know waiting times have been increased to 10-14 months now so we really want to get our application done as fast as we can so we are not separated for too long after May. I know tourist visas are always an option but I would love to start working to provide money for our future.

Even just taking your time, how long did it take for you to get everything together?
 
#4 ·
We are applying for a 309/100 (Defacto partner offshore) visa so I'm not sure if the documentation that we required is the same as yours.
After messing around for several months - and realising that not only had the waiting times increased, but so had the price(!) - we eventually got our basic information application done in 4 days! And we both worked on it full-time for 4 days solid!

HOWEVER, this doesn't entirely account for items such as:
- renewing her passport (it has to be valid for a certain period, hers was expiring shortly)
- getting our marriage certificate (it's not issued automatically in our country)
- getting my birth certificate re-issued (my first one got lost years ago)
- getting our affidavits/statutory declarations from friends and family
- applying for our police clearances/criminal checks
we had either already applied for those in the previous months OR applied in the 4 days, but most took up to 8 weeks to arrive.

It's helpful to print out your forms and read all the references on the immi site - but something we totally didn't realise until we started the online application is that you can lodge the application and THEN submit all your proof separately. It doesn't have to be done all in one go. I'm guessing that with their case load, you've got a couple weeks to submit all your evidence before anyone even looks at your application . I think we lost time by compiling ALL our evidence at home and then submitting everything online all at once (if that makes sense?). I think we could have 'got in the queue' by filling in the forms first and doing the evidence later - but to be honest, I'm not 100% of how the system works. :confused:

Have fun!
 
#5 ·
Ok so I just re-read my reply above and realised that what I am trying to say is: find out which visa you need, then create your ImmiAccount (I wrote a post about that somewhere - see my other posts) and start filling in your forms NOW.

The online application can be easily edited if you make a mistake and explains what you need. If you get get stuck you just save, log out and research it. If you start filling in your online app on Wednesday you should easily get it in by the end of September! Our crucial mistake was thinking we had to have everything ready by the time we even started doing the forms.
 
#6 ·
I didn't realise you could start filling out forms and submit them before having all the evidence. We have read through the forms and the handbooks and it all makes it seem like everything has to be together before you submit your 40/47SP forms. My fiance and I have not submitted our NOIM or even picked a celebrant and I am still unsure of whether I need to apply for a Free to Marry Certificate. I can't imagine we are in a good place to get our 47/40SPs submitted.

I do have a question regarding to the police check and character check. Are these the same thing? I am sort of aware of character checks were you get the police to prove you are not a criminal. Do these have to be submitted at the time of application? Is it just Form 80 filled out? Do we do it when requested or when we lodge the application? Searching through the forums has made this unclear.
 
#7 ·
Hello everyone, good luck to all! I am new to this website, still trying to figure out how to join groups and forums. I lodged my offshore partner visa application today and began uploading documents. For this Australian forum website, new members have to make 5 posts apparently before they can start their own threads. Thank you for sharing your information, LizBee and Clodard!
 
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