[ValeriaRV]

1. What are your recommendations on where to start? Create a checklist? Prioritize specific items?

2. How long did it take you to gather everything and apply?

3. Did you apply yourself or use an agent?

My partner and I have decided just yesterday to apply for the de-facto visa ONSHORE and I will start the process of gathering evidence and creating a checklist today. I will be doing the process myself and NOT using an agent.

Would appreciate advice on best way to start based on your personal experience.

 

[Mania]

1 Pay agent
2 Send loads of random scanned stuff
3 Sit back with a beer whilst they did it all for me

Gathering everything took about a week for me.


In seriousness, I found it easy to grab all my documents, seperate them into each of the catagories, work out if I felt I had enough, if not find more.

888's are a good one to start early as people sometimes take a while. Anything that takes a long time to process in your home country, for instance your police checks may take 6 months to process, if so start them early.

It is worth noting that there are a lot of rapid grants happening at the moment so it may work in your favour to preload your application with everything and risk the potential expiry of medical/police check.