Ren Posted June 7, 2019 Report Share Posted June 7, 2019 (edited) On 11 June it will be 6 months since we lodged for our 190 visa and it has just been radio silence since then. No news whatsoever. Every time I log into MyImmiTracker I see that there have been grants of visas which were lodged around the time when we lodged ours, but none for Accountants. It has been a year since we started the process and everything is in place for us to leave here in October this year, except....we don't have our visas. I see that the average processing time has gone from 11-14 months now which means there is a chance we might need to redo our medicals which we were not budgeting for and we may need to make our son start in Grade 1 and then disrupt him as he settles in (nevermind the fact that we will need to pay a deposit and buy uniform for just a couple of months - all money which we could have rather used to help us setting in our new home). I just feel so deflated and disheartened. I know people will reply and say that 6 months is not that long and people have waited much longer.... but people have also only waited 2 months and I just don't understand why there is a discrepancy. I wish I could just understand how the process works and I wish I could just have a realistic expectation of when that email/phone call will come. This is truly just so so difficult! Edited June 7, 2019 by Ren Spelling error Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RYLC Posted June 7, 2019 Report Share Posted June 7, 2019 55 minutes ago, Ren said: I just feel so deflated and disheartened. I know people will reply and say that 6 months is not that long and people have waited much longer.... I'm really sorry if my reply doesn't seem sympathetic but I just feel that somebody has to tell you the facts... Migration is a long and arduous process. We know that... and you are in the middle of some of the arduous part. The waiting is a bit of a conditioning process whereby you hold your nerve, keep your eye on your goal and keep the faith. You can't keep asking "are we there yet?" especially when the specified processing time isn't up yet because it takes as long as it takes. Every application is different and cannot be compared in an apples for apples case. It takes a lot of mental and emotional strength to get through this process as well as the settling in and job search this side. You have to just hang in there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ren Posted June 7, 2019 Author Report Share Posted June 7, 2019 Thanks RYLC... trust me I am aware that it is a long process. I don't have my head in the sand... but I am also just human and when you see people around you getting grants then the facts don't make sense and that is what is getting to me. If it were just myself and my husband in this, then I would just go with the flow...but I have children who depend on me and I don't want to cause them more upheaval than they are already going to experience with our move. There are also financial implications which have now popped up with this increase in processing time (medicals - which yes in the bigger picture is not THAT much considering how much we have already spent, but it is also R10k which could go towards rent). It is a long and emotional process and as such, people are allowed to feel the ups and downs, regardless of the "facts" that you state above. My eye is on the goal and I have faith, but it is still hard. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RYLC Posted June 7, 2019 Report Share Posted June 7, 2019 Believe me, we KNOW it's hard. It's just that it's not actually the hardest part. People look back and say that the waiting was the easy part. So I want you to know that. And I also know that there are financial implications... From previous posts on here, Immi do try to get applications through in time before documents expire. I know that you are using an agent and I'm sure that they have reassured you that everything is still on track. They have the experience to KNOW this and will be the guiding hand for you on this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ottg Posted June 8, 2019 Report Share Posted June 8, 2019 There is nothing so disheartened than uncertainty. Wait time is wasted time. The only advice I can give is dont stop living. Instead, rather plan for a delay of say 2 years in your transition plans after validating your Visa (within 12-months). That way you bought yourself some slack and peace of mind as the Visa is valid for 5 years. No need to rush it with the acceptance that you can get cold-feet :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HappyIsland Posted June 9, 2019 Report Share Posted June 9, 2019 We're a family of 4 and have been busy with this process for almost 5 years, so there's many of us in the same boat. Yes, the most recent timelines for 190's state 10-14 months but these timelines are not specific and cast a wide net. I find the most realistic timelimes are from those on myimmitracker and those on the forums. Currently, according to myimmitracker, most 190 visas are granted from about 170-200 days. Yes, some people get their visas in 2 months, but this is the exception and not the norm. As I understand, visas are generally processed on a first come first serve basis, but there's many other factors thrown in there that can affect the timelines. For instance, did your CO go on leave or maternity leave, what is their individual load like, did you front load everything, is your application decision ready, must your CO still request documents / PCC / Medicals, etc. And then there's a bit of luck of the draw thrown in there too. One thing to keep in mind: there's only a few days left of this migration year, and the new migration year starts on 1 Jul 2019. As such, it is believed that there will be a bit of a slowdown until then, but let's hope things pick up after 1 July. Either way, you should be seeing movement from somewhere around the 190 day mark based on the most recent timelines, so I don't think it will be much longer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mel-B Posted June 10, 2019 Report Share Posted June 10, 2019 We waited 6 years for our visa. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HappyIsland Posted June 10, 2019 Report Share Posted June 10, 2019 9 hours ago, Mel-B said: We waited 6 years for our visa. 😫 That's an awful long time. Did it get lost in the system, or were there some complications? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChrisH Posted June 10, 2019 Report Share Posted June 10, 2019 11 hours ago, HappyIsland said: Did it get lost in the system lol this isn't Africa. I think saffas are super paranoid about this because of how useless our own civil servants are. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LM17 Posted June 10, 2019 Report Share Posted June 10, 2019 (edited) Learning to wait and being patient is something all South Africans moving to Aus could learn (myself included) Whether we like to admit it or not, in SA – you can normally huff and puff and “bully” people into helping you and get your way. If that does not work we just pay someone to go queue for us at home affairs…. Australia is extremely efficient but things take as long as it takes, no amount of tantrums will help you. Be patient respect the process and the person helping you and you will get there (She’ll be alright mate) See this as good practice for living in a 1st world country 😉 Edited June 10, 2019 by LM17 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HappyIsland Posted June 10, 2019 Report Share Posted June 10, 2019 13 minutes ago, ChrisH said: lol this isn't Africa. I think saffas are super paranoid about this because of how useless our own civil servants are. It was a valid question as 6 years is a long time. That being said, I don't think it's far fetched to think it might have gotten lost in the system. During my ACS application, that is exactly what happened to me. My CO went on leave, and it never got handed over, and my application fell through the cracks so to speak. It took some effort to get it moving again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mel-B Posted June 10, 2019 Report Share Posted June 10, 2019 No our application wasnt lost. We were part of a small group that got the short end of the stick - stuck at the end of a retired PR visa class (175) that was placed at the lowest priority. I know its not the same situation but keep in mind when we applied the average waiting time was 9 months. We sold our home and moved into my mums garage to wait the last 6 months out.... just be informed that the visa system has been changed. No refunds, no guarantees. My point is you don't know what happens, things go as they go. You have to be patient. I know living in limbo sucks. Hope you get some good news soon! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TakeItOnTheChin Posted June 10, 2019 Report Share Posted June 10, 2019 Ren I know this is difficult and it's the not knowing that is really frustrating. Sometimes however as humans we worry about things that will not transpire and spend too much time and energy on that which makes it difficult to do anything else. I am sure you will be fine and that your visa will arrive when you least expect it. I know that these words may not make you feel better but what I can tell you is that the most difficult part of the visa process (waiting) comes just before the best part, the grant,. You are almost there and I know you will share the good news with us soon. Good luck and see you in Oz soon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Minks Posted June 10, 2019 Report Share Posted June 10, 2019 As everyone above has said - it takes as long as it takes, and you can't change that fact... but I know that it doesn't make it any less frustrating for you, as the person waiting. We have always worked on a "plan for what you know" basis. What you know is that your son will start Grade 1, you may have to redo your medicals etc - so work within those boundaries. It may seem like a waste of money, but those are the things you KNOW will possibly need to happen before you can get to Australia. There's no point in stressing over the unknown and trying to plan for every eventuality. Yes it will be costly to purchase uniforms etc, and may seem like a "waste" of money which could go on things like rent... however keeping some form of stability in routine until you know it's time to leave will only help you maintain your sanity and keep your children happy and less anxious in the long run! If your visa is granted before any of those things happen, you'll be doing a happy dance. If not, you're prepared. As for the "radio silence" - that's what happens here, whether it be your visa, job applications or general correspondence... they will contact you when you when your number comes up. It sucks sometimes, but it is what it is. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TeeTMI Posted June 11, 2019 Report Share Posted June 11, 2019 4 hours ago, Mel-B said: No our application wasnt lost. We were part of a small group that got the short end of the stick - stuck at the end of a retired PR visa class (175) that was placed at the lowest priority. I know its not the same situation but keep in mind when we applied the average waiting time was 9 months. We sold our home and moved into my mums garage to wait the last 6 months out.... just be informed that the visa system has been changed. No refunds, no guarantees. My point is you don't know what happens, things go as they go. You have to be patient. I know living in limbo sucks. Hope you get some good news soon! Those were some awful months! One day the 175/176's visa applications (the equivalent of the 189/190s these days but before EOI's) that had already been paid for and lodged were being granted within a month or two and then overnight they just stopped processing these visas for a long time (or never for some)! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TeeTMI Posted June 11, 2019 Report Share Posted June 11, 2019 On 6/7/2019 at 6:37 PM, Ren said: On 11 June it will be 6 months since we lodged for our 190 visa and it has just been radio silence since then. No news whatsoever... ...I wish I could just understand how the process works and I wish I could just have a realistic expectation of when that email/phone call will come. This is truly just so so difficult! Hang on in there - we think when we hand in the application that we are almost there, however as with every stage it can seem to drag out forever. Your day will come. Unfortunately, there is no realistic expectation to be given. There is significant variation within the system. Different teams may work in slightly different ways - or may have a slower or faster case load for a variety of reasons. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ren Posted June 11, 2019 Author Report Share Posted June 11, 2019 10 hours ago, ChrisH said: lol this isn't Africa. I think saffas are super paranoid about this because of how useless our own civil servants are. I don't think that is an unreasonable question...Saffa or not, mistakes happen. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ren Posted June 11, 2019 Author Report Share Posted June 11, 2019 Thanks everyone for your reassuring comments! I really appreciate it :-) As luck would have it - on Thursday I made the decision to stop checking my Immiaccount everyday and just wait for it to happen and for my agent to contact me... yesterday I got an email that a CO had been appointed :-) A bit frustrating that they are asking for something which was already sent (PTE Score Reports), but at least there is some sort of movement which has given me renewed hope! We now have another issue because the Pearson's website gives me an error that the report has already been sent to DHA and thus cannot be sent again. I contacted an agent at Pearsons and they said that the reports were sent on 24 July 2018 and can't be sent again :-( Hopefully our agent knows what to do in this situation. I am also trying to not focus on the cases in MyImmiTracker where it was like an additional 6 month wait to get the actual visa once CO contact had been made and I am trying to have faith that it will just be a couple of weeks and we will have our PR in hand!! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HappyIsland Posted June 11, 2019 Report Share Posted June 11, 2019 25 minutes ago, Ren said: We now have another issue because the Pearson's website gives me an error that the report has already been sent to DHA and thus cannot be sent again. I've see this kind of thing reported a lot recently. CO's asking for PCC, English test results etc. that have already been uploaded. Pearson only allows you to send the results to DHA once. There shouldn't be anything else for you to do other than letting the CO know that the documents have already been uploaded. Definitely progress. You should have your grant soon. 👍 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ren Posted June 11, 2019 Author Report Share Posted June 11, 2019 6 minutes ago, HappyIsland said: I've see this kind of thing reported a lot recently. CO's asking for PCC, English test results etc. that have already been uploaded. Pearson only allows you to send the results to DHA once. There shouldn't be anything else for you to do other than letting the CO know that the documents have already been uploaded. Definitely progress. You should have your grant soon. 👍 I hope so!! Funny how as I literally just gave up hope, the CO got assigned :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HappyIsland Posted June 11, 2019 Report Share Posted June 11, 2019 10 hours ago, Ren said: As luck would have it - on Thursday I made the decision to stop checking my Immiaccount everyday and just wait for it to happen and for my agent to contact me... yesterday I got an email that a CO had been appointed 🙂 A bit frustrating that they are asking for something which was already sent (PTE Score Reports), but at least there is some sort of movement which has given me renewed hope! We now have another issue because the Pearson's website gives me an error that the report has already been sent to DHA and thus cannot be sent again. I contacted an agent at Pearsons and they said that the reports were sent on 24 July 2018 and can't be sent again 😞 Hopefully our agent knows what to do in this situation. Hi @Ren, I did a bit of research on this since I have seen a lot of requests for online PTE score report requests in cases where the reports were already sent to DHA. Immitracker shows there's been quite a few requests. It turns out that PTE launched a new score reporting website in 2019 that institutions can use to check score reports, and the way to lookup scores is with a new score report code. This score report code is only available if you download a new copy of your score report in PDF. I went back and checked on my old score report, and it didn't have the score report code. More info and a downloadable PDF guide at https://pearsonpte.com/organizations/why-pte-academic/online-score-verification-new/ So thanks for letting us know the cause of the delay @Ren Hopefully this will help others to avoid CO contact delays as a result of the new PTE score report code. What I did was to download the new PDF report with the score report code, created a cover letter, and merged the 2 documents into 1 PDF. I included the following info in the cover letter: - An explanation that this is the new PDF with score report code - Included the score report code - Included the Registration Id (which can also be used to lookup the report online) - Mentioned the date my original report was sent to the Australian DHA on X date - Mentioned that the new PDF report is attached to the 2nd page of the PDF Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ren Posted June 12, 2019 Author Report Share Posted June 12, 2019 @HappyIsland Thank you so so much for this information! My agent is not replying to my emails so I have been completely stumped! I had no luck with the service agents at Pearson's either who simply told me that they cannot send the results to DHA again. I have done what you suggested and downloaded the PDFs again and I see the code is on there now. I have sent the PDFs to my agent and hopefully they can send these to the case officer with an explanation. Although I do have access to my ImmiAccount because I needed to get the HAP ID numbers for our medicals, I have never uploaded anything myself (plus I have paid my agent a rather large fortune to manage this process for me) so I am hoping that they know what to do and do it properly! Based on your research, do you have any idea what the average timeline is from when the Case Officer requests this kind of thing until they finalise the case? I am wondering if it is a matter of days/weeks or if I am looking at another 6 months. I am a little disappointed with our agent for not knowing what you have just told me. You would think that with charging a fee of R70k they would be on top of this kind of stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ren Posted June 13, 2019 Author Report Share Posted June 13, 2019 Me again... So our agent sent the updated score reports with an email to the case officer and about an hour later our status changed from Initial Assessment to Further Assessment. How often do they come back with more requests... am I allowed to start getting excited or is it too early??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HappyIsland Posted June 13, 2019 Report Share Posted June 13, 2019 (edited) 1 hour ago, Ren said: Me again... So our agent sent the updated score reports with an email to the case officer and about an hour later our status changed from Initial Assessment to Further Assessment. How often do they come back with more requests... am I allowed to start getting excited or is it too early??? They should assess the information you sent now, and based on CO contact timelines reported on immitracker and other forums, given that they don't request any further information, it should take anywhere from a few days to 3 months to get a visa grant. It depends on the CO. Either way, your visa is busy being processed. Try not to think about it too much and just get on with other things you can do in preparation for emigration. To put things in perspective, in a year's time, the time you spent thinking about how long the visa process would still take will be completely forgotten and insignificant. Edited June 13, 2019 by HappyIsland Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HappyIsland Posted June 20, 2019 Report Share Posted June 20, 2019 (edited) On 6/7/2019 at 9:37 AM, Ren said: On 11 June it will be 6 months since we lodged for our 190 visa and it has just been radio silence since then. No news whatsoever. Hi @Ren I see you updated your case to visa granted on ImmiTracker. Fantastic news and well done! 190 days on the dot. I wish I was in your shoes now, but I'm sure our grant will come soon. When are you planning on making the move? 🇦🇺 Edited June 20, 2019 by HappyIsland grammar Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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