[dualcitizen]

Hi All.
Firstly, I've read through a few of the previous responses/posts, and we want to thank those that spend time responding. As an Admin on a few unrelated boards, I know it takes time, and is often under appreciated!!

Anyway, relevant info time.

• I'm Australian, my wife is American.
• Married in America in 15-10-2011.
• I completed visa applications there, now hold a Perm Res card, social sec number, license, bought a house, sold a house etc.
• I also hold a Dutch/Nederlands/Netherlands Passport, and my wife has a Norwegian Identity card (as we spent a few months there last year + traveled Europe)
• We have no kids/dependents (hence travelling Europe )
• She lived in Aus with me for 1 year before we left and got married in America. We have shared accounts in both Aus/USA, stable finances, savings etc. No financial burden/hardships, No criminal records/convictions etc

We are completing the online application right now, and there are some questions we just want confirmation of.

Firstly, she arrived here on an ETA. Does this count as a substantive visa for application purposes?
Two, continuing on - Immediate family member details. We added her parents, their marriage dates, her sister/marriage dates etc. The Online version asks more questions than the paper versions. Is it better/easier to complete the Paper version as opposed to the online version?
Third We have come to Australia as my father is sick (Stage IV Cancer). Is there any way we can expedite our application due to extenuating circumstances? I think we can also write a letter as we've been married longer than 5 years and are seen as "more stable" in our relationship?

I'm sure I'll discover more questions as we go here, so I'll add/edit as it happens.

Thanks again and Thanks in Advance!!

Edit: We'll also need to apply for BVB as next year we are planning to visit her parents in the USA for her Dad's 60th Birthday. This may also involve a trip to Playa Del Carmen/Mexico Resorts for added relaxation, but not confirmed

Edit #2: We have spent since July 5th 2015 travelling the world together. We have visited 42+ countries, and spent 24/7 with each other. We also only take carry on luggage It's a good think we love each others company

 

[ampk]

Firstly, she arrived here on an ETA. Does this count as a substantive visa for application purposes?

* yes

Two, continuing on - Immediate family member details. We added her parents, their marriage dates, her sister/marriage dates etc. The Online version asks more questions than the paper versions. Is it better/easier to complete the Paper version as opposed to the online version?

* no

Third We have come to Australia as my father is sick (Stage IV Cancer). Is there any way we can expedite our application due to extenuating circumstances? I think we can also write a letter as we've been married longer than 5 years and are seen as "more stable" in our relationship?

* no but you should get 820 & 801 issued at same time (12-15 months away)

** After application you automatically get BVA - this starts 3 months after last entry into Australia. (full work rights)

** As soon as application for 820 is made you can apply Medicare.

 

[turkishgirl]

ampk this is great information, thank you! I will be in the same situation with my husband in a few months (only, without the ill relatively, which I'm sorry to hear about dualcitizen).

I have been married to my Turkish husband for 3.5 years now, and we have a 2.5 year old daughter. Do you think we will be eligible for the 801 visa directly? Is there a certain way to apply for this - I mean, is there a specific form for the 801 or do we apply for the 820 and then Immigration decides which one is appropriate for us?

 

[ampk]

Permanent Partner visa (subclasses 100 and 801)
For the grant of the permanent Partner visa (subclass 100 or 801), you can be either in or outside
Australia. This is the case whether you lodged your original application in or outside Australia.
In most cases, permanent residence cannot be granted less than 2 years from when you lodge your
application. You may, however, be granted a permanent visa without having to fulfil the usual two-year
waiting period if:
• at the time you apply, you have been in a partner relationship with your partner for
3 years or more, or 2 years or more if you and your partner have a dependent child of your
relationship; or

 

[dualcitizen]

Thanks ampk!

Getting both at the same time is what we'll plan on. The BVA doesn't allow travel through, so we will definitely have to apply for BVB.

We will do that once we get granted the BVA afaik.

Again, thanks for the super quick response!

 

[ampk]

Online apart from the few extras like wedding dates of family and the written answer section about relationship is pretty much the same as paper forms.

The benefits is no certified copies of documents - only colour scans of original are required to be uploaded (saves heaps of running around).

You can continue to upload docs until your application is decided.

Easily upload any documents Case Officer requests.

Application wont get lost by courier company/s.

You have a digital record if all goes bad and need to go to MRT (AAT).

At some stage they were going to charge extra for a paper application if a online was available - not sure what happened with that.

***** Just plan your uploads keeping in mind Maximum number (60) per person and file size limit (I can never remember the MB size)

Most people only need the applicants 60 upload spots, so plan to keep the sponsors for emergency I recommend.

 

[KofteQueen]

I have been married to my Turkish husband for 3.5 years now, and we have a 2.5 year old daughter. Do you think we will be eligible for the 801 visa directly? Is there a certain way to apply for this - I mean, is there a specific form for the 801 or do we apply for the 820 and then Immigration decides which one is appropriate for us?

Hi Turkish Girl. Are you currently in Australia or are you in Turkey?

We submitted our 309/100 (offshore) partner visa application from Turkey in August. The Australian Embassy in Ankara seems to process partner visas relatively quickly - at least in comparison to the onshore 820/801. Our case officer advised us a week ago that my husband's visa would be issued after the holidays - so if it is issued in early January (fingers crossed!) - that would be a processing time of about 5 months. Just food for thought!

Oh, and we applied for the 309/100, and in theory, should be granted to permanent (100) visa right away, as we had been married for 12 years at the time of application. We both included a paragraph on our personal statements requesting that we be considered for the permanent visa right away, as per the DIBP guidelines that ampk outlined. I know that some people included this request in a separate cover letter. My understanding is that they issue the 309 or 820 first, then immediately issue the 100/801 visa.

 

[dualcitizen]

Hi Again!

We submitted our application tonight, Friday 27/1 and the system told us the BPAY transfer needs to be there by Jan 30th.

HOWEVER, the BPAY transfer is scheduled to arrive on the 1st

What should we do??? We are freaking out right now.

I can't get into the application to get any of the information out (all of the writing/countries visited (more than 70 entries here alone!)
I tried calling them, but they are of course closed until 8.30am monday morning!

I can pay by visa (I didn't want to, but I can), however it won't let me select any other payment option, or view any payment details.

We are super tense here

 

[dualcitizen]

About the only thing I can see, is that If I send the application from my wife's immi account to mine, it *could* change it's status (but I think that's doubtful)

The only thing I can do is "copy, or send", and Copy doesn't copy any of the actual details over, which is just stupid imo.

 

[Aussie83]

BPAY always takes at least 3-4 business days to process. All you can do is call Monday

 

[dualcitizen]

BPAY always takes at least 3-4 business days to process. All you can do is call Monday

faaark. I can't believe their system doesn't take weekends into account either. That's really rough.

Guess we'll be calling Monday morning.

 

[Aussie83]

Thats not just their system ALL bpay is the same.

 

[ampk]

I assume a visa is about to expire? When is that?

 

[dualcitizen]

Thats not just their system ALL bpay is the same.

Yes, but telling people they can pay via BPAY, then accepting an application on a weekend is a bit of a crock. A competent designer/programmer would start the date submitted counter instantaneously, but would ALSO add additional days if datetime() is after 5pm on a Friday or during the weekend. IE. The next business day, to avoid situations like this.

I assume a visa is about to expire? When is that?

Nope. We arrived back Nov 24th. So she is on the 3 month/90days visa...so we are good.

It just that I really don't want to re-fill in all of those forms. Especially the one that says what countries you've visited and what dates. Because (for example) in 40 days last year, we visited:

Norway, netherlands, germany,france,germany, poland, germany, czech republic, germany, austria, germany, switzerland, lichtenstein, france, germany, france, belgium, netherlands.

And that's just a small snippet of our Euro driving tour.
We also visited South Korea (twice), Japan, China. Hong Kong, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand (twice), Norway (more than 7 times), sweden, America, Canada, Spain, Hungary, Turkey, Italy, Greece, Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania

The Map below is mostly up to date. It's missing a visit to LA in November, then the trip to Australia.

https://secure.travellerspoint.com/member_map.cfm?user=zacsmits&tripid=670366

Again, thanks for the responses though!

 

[al_ghazal]

Hi Again!

We submitted our application tonight, Friday 27/1 and the system told us the BPAY transfer needs to be there by Jan 30th.

HOWEVER, the BPAY transfer is scheduled to arrive on the 1st

What should we do??? We are freaking out right now.

I can't get into the application to get any of the information out (all of the writing/countries visited (more than 70 entries here alone!)
I tried calling them, but they are of course closed until 8.30am monday morning!

I can pay by visa (I didn't want to, but I can), however it won't let me select any other payment option, or view any payment details.

We are super tense here

When I finished my application I paid by BPAY (around 10pm) DIBP actually confirm they receive my application/payment first thing the following morning (around 830am - weekday). That was surprising even to me because I got that message about payment taking a few days too....I am with Commonwealth Bank.

 

[ampk]

OK I see now. I am not sure how it works (their system) but I don't expect it auto dumps with out payment - These payments are made all over the World, DIBP are closed at say 5pm in Sydney on 30th but it is still the 29th in other places in the World at that time.

My travel history would not be accepted 30 odd countries, I listed I think the last 12 months of around 10 countries. I put as complete a list with best remembered dates in a word document and uploaded that "notes and explanations for Case Officer"

 

[dualcitizen]

I'm applying from Geelong, Victoria. It does say that fullo payment has to be received by 5pm on the 30th.

I'm just not sure that initiating the BPAY transfer will be enough.

We had all of the countries and exact dates listed. We've been blogging about our travels, and all our visas/passport stamps, so we have all that in order.

Good idea about the dates/countries list in word...when I got my green card in the US I had to scan every page of my passport as well

-----------
Commonwealth process BPAY transfers a lot later in the day than most banks. Bendigo specifically list their cutoff as 5pm.

 

[dualcitizen]

Okay so after quite a bit of back and forth (and the ladies refusal to escalate me to a supervisor or manager), I got them to say that BPAY transfers will be waited for up to a week.

I did not believe this, (as I was repeatedly told to "pay again using a credit card if you're worried the funds won't be here on time"), so I asked for it in writing, because I wanted a record of it.

I have received their letter in writing saying that "if the transfer is not received in 3 days, we have the ability to search for it for up to a week".

Success.

I uploaded all of our documents, and submitted my partner application too.
And we scheduled, completed/received the ll clear from her health check as well.

Fingers crossed it will be a quick acceptance now.

 

[dualcitizen]

Still waiting ~8months later :S

 

[ampk]

Could be half way!