NEW THREAD - 143 Contributory Parent (Migrant) Visa - Tips and Other information

[Orphan]

Assurance of Support bond paid in today, and receipt emailed to PVC.

Only 5 working days remaining to get our visas, before we must make a call on delaying our flights.

Nail-biting stuff!

[Niamatbir]

Hey Orphan

My daughter just received the bond letter and shes gonna deposit it tomorrow morning.

my question is :- do we again have to wait for some sort of letter after bond deposit or they gonna give the acceptance letter or receipt immediately after depositing the bond?

[Orphan]

Hi Rich,

When your daughter goes in to pay your Assurance of Support Bond, she will show this original Centrelink letter to the Bank, which will then open up a dedicated Bond Account in her name, and will issue her a Bank Guarantee letter and payment receipt.

Immediately upon receipt of these two items, your daughter must email scanned copies back to your Centrelink AoS Contact person. (This is important, as I don't think the bank does this.)

Centrelink will upload this payment information into their system, which then generates an overnight report to DAIC. The system will also create an AoS Acceptance Letter, which will be posted to you. Once you receive this Acceptance Letter, you need to scan and email a copy to the Parent Visa Centre in Perth.

On receipt of this letter, PVC will check their system to find your AoS payment, and then email you a formal request to pay in your second VAC. You (or your daughter) must then go to your bank and get a Bank guaranteed cheque for the full amount of the second VAC. This cheque must be sent by registered mail back to PVC, who will then deposit it and issue your visa within a day or two.

If however your money for the second VAC is not in Australia as yet, and you intend to raise this cheque through your UK Bank, you will have to wait 28 days for this cheque to clear, before PVC will issue you a visa. Alternatively, you could pay by credit card, but the bank charges on this are horrendous!

[Niamatbir]

Thank you for all the information mate! Now im pretty sure that im gonna get my grant next year.

Edited December 15, 2014 by Niamatbir

[Belindaf]

Hi there 2nd Vac Payment question. Has anyone had experience in doing a Bank draft from Absa, and was this hassle free. If paying from SA is this the best option. Thank you

[Mara]

Belinda, my question would be, why a bank draft? That is a piece of paper that is issued and you have to still get it to Australia. Can you not do a telegraphic transfer?

[Orphan]

Belinda,

I would advise you to move your money across to a bank account in Australia using your R1.0m p.p. annual allowance, which is renewed on January 1 each year

For two reasons.

It is simpler and there is no delay while the foreign bank cheque is being cleared

And, because of the Rand, which continues to depreciate every week, with no end in sight. By the time you do it from here in Rand, it could cost you another R100k purely as a result of the exchange rate.

[Mara]

Orphan, if she moves her money across to an Australian bank account, to my knowledge, no money can be taken out of that account, UNTIL she presents herself physically at the bank for identification purposes...

She needs to pay her 2nd instalment... so could this not be done by telegraphic transfer?

[Orphan]

Mara

I am sure you are correct if it is to her own bank account in Australia.

But I was thinking of her sending the money to an account set up by either her sponsor or a family member, as I have done.

[Mara]

Well now, Orphan that explains it then, thought there was no chance that you could be wrong....

[Orphan]

15h31 AEST on 18 December 2014 - our Visas granted!!!!

Thanks to fellow migrants for all your prayers, letters of support, and well wishes.

We fly out on Monday 22nd

Edited December 18, 2014 by Orphan

[Belindaf]

CONGRATULATIONS.......keep in touch, hoping we get our CO in the next few weeks. ALL the best, see you in Brissie

[Jordy]

Huge congratulations Mr and Mrs. Orphan. So happy for you!

I hope this doesnt mean the forum has served its purpose for you and your time on the forum is over. Would be sad to see you move on too soon!

[Orphan]

Not at all Jordy.

This thread has become a bit of a pet project, so I will be happy to offer help and offer advice wherever I can

Edited December 19, 2014 by Orphan

[Mara]

Fantastic news....

[Niamatbir]

Many many congratulation mate!

[Orphan]

#11. CROSSING THE FINISH LINE

After 566 days, our own journey is now complete. All that remains for us is to close our bank accounts, say our final farewells, and get to the airport on time.

However, it would be remiss of me not to write a final chapter about what happens after your CO is appointed. Although you will have gleaned quite a bit of information about this from the preceding four or five pages, it is worth summarising the events which follow receipt of that long-awaited CO letter.

1/ The Case Officer Appointment Letter

The first thing to know is that the so-called "CO appointment letter" does not actually exist. There is no grand announcement; nor are you provided the name of a Case Officer to communicate with. Instead, you will receive a standard emailed letter which starts

Dear __________________,

Request for Information – Parent Subclass 143 (Contributory Parent –Migrant)

I am writing about your application to migrate to Australia, which was received on __________20__, and which is being considered under the provisions of a Parent subclass 143 (Contributory Parent – Migrant) visa..........

And is signed simply - Parent Visa Centre, Department of Immigration and Border Protection

This letter lists the various bits of information that the Visa Centre requires from you and gives you 28 days to do so, although an extension can be requested. This list will change from applicant to applicant, depending on their personal circumstances. For example, if you haven't taken your medicals you will now be asked to do so. However, the following three requirements appear to be common to all:

(i) A request to complete the Assurance of Support (AOS) through Centrelink.

[iMPORTANT NOTE: A key instruction is highlighted under this section of the letter - "Please send a scanned copy of the AOS Acceptance Letter from Centrelink to the Parent Visa Centre by email." This means exactly what it says. Once you have received the AOS Acceptance Letter from Centrelink through the post, YOU must email a scanned copy to the Visa Centre. Although Centrelink will itself upload the AOS information to the Immigration system, the Visa Centre will not continue with your application process until you have sent them a copy of the actual acceptance letter you received.]

(ii) A request to provide a Police Certificate for each applicant

[NB: You don't need to send the PVC the original Police certificates. This letter asks for a "scanned copy of the police certificate", and for you to "retain the original document as this may be requested".]

(iii) A request for Polio Vaccinations

[NB: This requirement only applies to people who have lived for "28 days of longer in any of the 10 countries listed below on or after 5 May 2014" - Afghanistan, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Iraq, Israel, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia and Syria.]

In addition to the above, this letter (and every communique which comes out of the Parent Centre after this) emphasises the following:

"Change of Circumstances:

If the applicants experience any changes in circumstances, the Department must be notified in writing within 14 days of the event. Forms to be used are:

Change of Address Notification: Form 929 ‘Client Change of Address’

Changes in Circumstance: Form 1022 ‘Notification of Change of Circumstance’."

2/ The Assurance of Support process

Having received your Request for Information letter from the Visa Centre, the focus of attention now switches to Centrelink and the Assurance of Support requirement.

As mentioned previously in this thread, you don't need to wait until you hear from the PVC before starting this process. In fact, your original acknowledgement letter from the PVC states that this process can commence 12 months after your visa lodgement date, i.e. about 6 months before you expect to hear from the PVC case officer.

We found this process to be the most frustrating, as all sorts of things seemed to go wrong, from Centrelink scanners not working, to our sole Centrelink appointed contact going off sick for a couple of days. In the end, competing the AoS process, and getting the all-important acceptance letter, took us a full 6 weeks. So the sooner you start, the better.

The steps in this process are as follows:

(i) Your Assurer/Sponsor makes contact with Centrelink, and presents an original copy of the AoS letter that was attached to the acknowledgement letter you received after lodging your application. At this first point of contact, Centrelink will provide your sponsor with information on what the AoS bond entails, and what forms need to be completed.

(ii) Your Sponsor completes all the necessary AoS forms, and presents these, plus all the other required documents - such as financial statements and payslips - to Centrelink for scanning into their system. It is important to keep copies of everything that was scanned, because, in our case, some of these "disappeared" off the system, and had to be done again.

(iii) About two weeks after this, your designated Centrelink case officer, will contact your sponsor and conduct a telephonic interview. The main purpose of this is to assess the financial capacity of your sponsor, and explain the legal and financial implications of an Aos commitment. As a result, it can be a rather traumatic event for your sponsor.

(iv) Thereafter, based on the interview and information provided, a final assessment of your sponsor is conducted by another division within Centrelink. The results of their decision, whether positive or negative, is communicated to your sponsor in writing, and comes through the post, (not by email). If your application has been unsuccessful, you are provided only 14 days in which to find another, or an additional sponsor (you are allowed up to three sponsors), following which either the whole process starts again with your new sponsor, or Centrelink advises the Visa Centre of your rejection..

(v) If your sponsor's application is successful, he/she will be sent a second letter by Centrelink (again, by mail), requesting your sponsor to pay in the Assurance of Support. This can only be done at the Commonwealth Bank, who will open up a dedicated Bond Account in the name of your sponsor. If you are not an existing Commonwealth Bank client, there is an additional fee to open the Bond Account ($140, I think).

To open the Bond Account, you will need to show the Bank the original letter received from Centrelink through the mail (they wont accept a copy). The AoS bond amount is currently $10,000 for the main applicant, and $4,000 for each additional applicant. Note that this bond money is held on account with interest for a period of ten years from the time the visa is activated.

(vi) The Bank will issue your sponsor a payment receipt, and bond guarantee letter, which must both be scanned and sent back (by email) to Centrelink. Only upon receipt of these documents will Centrelink issue a final AoS approval letter, again in writing and again through the mail.

(vii) Immediately upon receipt of the AoS approval letter, a scanned copy MUST be sent by you (or your sponsor), to the Visa Centre. Only this will trigger a resumption of your Visa granting process.

Although this is a long, tiring, and at times, frustrating process. we found our Centrelink Case Officer (Victoria) to be extremely able, willing and helpful. Despite her being very busy, Victoria often went the extra mile in trying to expedite the process for us. Therefore, I would strongly encourage applicants to try and build a personal relationship with their case officers, as they all appear to be very empathetic and supportive, particularly towards us grannies and gramps!.

3/ Second VAC Payment

Once all your requested documents have been lodged with the Visa Centre, the final stage takes hardly any time at all. It is not unusual for the Visa Centre to contact you within two days to request payment of the second VAC.

At this point, you will now receive an emailed letter from the Visa Centre requesting payment of the Second Visa Application Charge (VAC), and giving you another 28 days to do so. For this, there are two payment options available - by Bank Guaranteed Cheque, or by Credit Card. The latter choice will obviously incur a horrendous bank charge of between 1.5% and 3%; but I also read somewhere that Immigration levy an additional credit card charge, so you had better research this carefully before deciding on this route. It may be the quicker payment option, but compare this to the $10 charged for the bank guaranteed cheque from an Australian Bank. Note that you cannot send cash or a personal Cheque, and that cheques drawn on a foreign bank will result in a 28 clearance delay.

The Bank Guaranteed Cheque needs to be made payable to the "Department of Immigration and Border Protection" and should be sent by registered mail to the Parent Visa Centre in Perth. This cost only $6, and took less than 24 hours to reach its destination across the country. Once this Cheque has been deposited, the Visa Centre sends a final Visa Grant letter, containing, inter alia, your Grant ID number and initial arrival date.

Note that for offshore visa applications, you need to be out of Australia when the visa is issued. The Visa Centre does give you the option of notifying them if you are in the country, and delaying the visa being issued until after you have exited.

Your 143 Parent Visa is "Label-free", meaning that it is issued electronically and does not require a physical label to be affixed in your passport. This means you can enter the country immediately upon receiving the visa grant letter (just take along a copy of the letter in case!)

As a final footnote, I want to pay tribute to the wonderful support we received from the manager and team of the Parent Visa Centre in Perth. Due to the unexpected delays we experienced with our Assurance of Support, we were under immense pressure to complete the process in time for our booked flights. (Although we did so in order to secure our arrival in time for Christmas, I would not recommend you book your tickets until AFTER you get your visa. It is a sure-fire recipe for sleepless nights and more gray hairs!) The staff at PVC were incredibly empathetic to our plight, and pulled out all the stops to ensure we got our visas in time. Therefore, don't be reluctant to give them a call if you have a problem or need assistance; they are a wonderful bunch of helpful people!

And that is the end of our personal 143 Visa saga...or as the locals say here, "Fluit, fluit, my storie's uit". I do hope that others will pick up the baton, and carry on posting their experiences on this thread, which so many people seem to be reading and deriving some assistance from. I certainly intend to stay in touch, and will offer my help whenever called upon.

In the meantime, may I wish all of those in the Waiting Room a speedy and stress-free journey, and Bon Voyage! Hopefully we shall meet up with some of you in the future.

Edited December 18, 2014 by Orphan

[KarinWise]

Well done to you Orphan-we have all been holding our collective breaths to see if you would make your flight-

we are so glad you made it before Xmas.

We all wish you a Bon Voyage and all the best for the future.

[Dirkz]

Well done Orphan ! Very glad for you.

We're on the Gold Coast at the moment visiting our kids. Please be prepared for severe heat and humidity on the East Coast.

I'm sure most members following this thread will agree with me that you wrote the updated manual on the 143 visa and I'd once again like to thank you for your sterling and detailed work. It will serve us in the waiting room as well as newcomers well in the foreseeable future.

[ShazPas]

Congratulations!!!! you are officially an Aussi now, safe travels

[KarinWise]

Hi Orphan,

Now that the first part of your journey is over, and a new one just beginning, we would all love for you to stay in touch.

One question I have for the many migrants who have come over on the 143 visa, what happens once you get to Australia?

Having spent a large part of your retirement money on this visa, except for those that are independently wealthy, how do you make a living in Australia?

It's not easy to get a job here, never mind if you are over 60. I would love to hear people's journeys that have made it here on this visa.

Can you ever own a house again? How do you get credit from a bank? Are you ever going to get a job?

Please share-as many of us are not being taken into Australia for our skills , I have to ask, where to from here? Are we dependent on our kids forever? Will our life style be downgraded to an extend where it becomes really uncomfortable, as Australia is super expensive!?!?

So many questions-I would like to hear from you.

[Jordy]

Very wise question indeed Karin (see what I did there )

In our parent's case, it means selling a paid off house to pay for the visa and now renting for the rest of one's life. Luckily my MIL can work for the next few years till the 10 years are up before the state pension is paid.

It may mean a change of career and being prepared to do a job that you would never have done in RSA. A friend's mom cleans hotel rooms at a local holiday chalet. But it could mean packing shelves etc. There is work but it may not be the job you thought would be doing at 65 years old. No you will not be stepping into the MD's position you left in RSA.. But thanks to the minimum wage these other jobs can pay $20/hour.

So for those who are not independantly wealthy, after you have sold up everything and paid the R500 000 visa fee, hopefull there is some left over to give a little income supplemented by casual work and the state pension in 10 years time.

I guess the big plus is that Medicare is a lifesaver and the benefits to pensioners means they hardly ever have to pay in on the public system.

[Orphan]

Hi KarinWise,

This is indeed the Million Dollar/Rand Question for all 143 Visa applicants.

Where to from now?

What is essential for all 143 Visa Applicants to recognise, is that they cannot be a burden on their children! Not only will this be grossly unfair and potentially crippling for them from a financial perspective, but it WILL have a detrimental impact on family relationships, no matter how close they are currently. Obviously, there will be situations where an elderly parent must be taken care of by children, but the majority of 143 visa candidates will be capable of taking care of themselves, and should plan to do so!

The decision by parents to emigrate cannot be made on an impulse. It requires serious advance planning and preparation to consider and address such questions as income, accommodation, and self-sufficiency for the ten years before qualifying for state pensions. But even when one reaches that point, it is likely that the state pension will be insufficient (particularly when renting), and that a supplementary income will still be required.

In our case, we made this decision to emigrate eight years ago, and spent the intervening years preparing for this very time. Although we have used up the bulk of our savings on the visa, we have in place plans to continue earning an income. My wife enrolled in University for another degree to increase her skillset and employment-attractiveness, and also started a private practice in order to gain the experience necessary to follow this route in Australia if it ever becomes necessary. For my part, I left the corporate world and started an IT business with an SA-based partner almost five years ago, which, because it is not geographically bound, will allow me to continue in my present role, and draw a salary, no matter where I end up in Australia. I also have plans to extend our product offering into Australia and have already registered a company there.

We do recognise that getting the credit necessary to purchase a house may be difficult because of our age. In which case, we shall attempt to buy one in my son's name, and then try to pay it off by the time we go onto pension.

Lastly, and something which may amuse most forumites, we also changed our lifestyles in preparation for Australia. We have dispensed of staff for a number of years now, and have learnt to manage all the household chores ourselves. We went to being a one-car family, stopped entertaining and eating out except on special occasions, cut back on luxuries (except for the occasional Irish whiskey!), and never replaced our pets after they died. We also got fit and healthy!

Our preparations may be insufficient, and our plans may not all be successful, but we have them in place, and their existence offers us Hope and Confidence.

And that is the point I wish to make to all visa applicants. Don't just arrive in Australia, expecting just to pick up where you left off with your life in South Africa, and even in respect of your previous relationship with your Kids. Recognise that radical changes are necessary on your part, and prepare for them - mentally, physically and financially - as best you possibly can. See your children as your Last Resort, your Back-up Plan, your final Go-To, only to be used if all else fails. If you do, they will be most appreciative and very willing to help if the time comes, and you will have the very best chance of success.

[Mara]

Very well put Orphan !

[KarinWise]

Thank you Jordy and Orphan -two interesting and diverse answers.

I would love to hear from more people who have taken this route, and how they prepared and planned for this.

Also, for people still on this journey, it could be very helpful to learn from others.

My brother and sister in law took the 143 visa several years ago, and came over to Australia with a fair bit of money, and a whole lot of stars in their eyes.

Within 5 years they were absolutely wiped out, there were several reasons for this, but let's just say they had run a very successful and profitable business in SA, and were certainly not fools.

Their children were not in a position to help them in any way, going back to SA was simply not an option for them, so now they are living in Bali. We are not sure how they are surviving, we are worried sick about them, and they are too proud to let anyone know what their situation is.

I am not trying to scare anyone here, but I do believe what Orphan says it's absolutely correct. You cannot prepare enough for this move!!!

It's a different world, and not one that we are familiar with. Research is needed, and a strategy must be put in place before arrival.

I cannot emphasize this enough, specially to people still making this journey.

Work in hotels, stacking shelves etc is available, but what if your health is not up for it?

There must be a plan B.

So, I say to all the parents out there wishing to join their children, it sounds lovely to be in Australia, all together again, but be sure you can support yourself. Becoming a burden to your children is simply not an option. Most children have their own battles to face, so before you hand over that R 1 Million for a re-location visa fee for a couple, understand that this is not a commitment to be taken lightly.