Documentation - must we take everything with?

[Reinhardt & Christa]

Hi all,

We are slowly getting our things sorted out in deciding what to take with and what to leave behind, when the question came up regarding our filed documents. Things like old insuance policies, telephone bills, municipality statements, old tax returns, vehicle registrations, school correspondence, etc. We have a filing cabinet full of it and we were wondering what is importent to take with and what not. Like for example telephone statements. Are they of any use in Australia or can we trash them? Or maybe archive it here?

Thanks!

[sa2auz]

Hi there

I suggest you keep things that you might need for a tax return as well as any final documents or readings on Water electricity etc as we only got our rebate back on our rates and taxes 6 months after we left and the amount was half what we thought it should be. Also make sure you have copies of references etc and copies of passports with you on the plane so that you can organise a house when you get here. Also things like school reports, christening certificates etc will help when get your child into school although not a necessity. Telephone accounts won't do you much good here so chuck those. We asked your doctors and dentists for copies of our files and our dentist gave us the mouldings of my sons teeth so he carry on treatment here. Also keep your childrens immunisation cards out you will need them for school.

Good Luck

[Riekie]

We left all our very old docs (telephone accounts etc) in a box with friends of ours who kindly offered to keep it for us for 5 years and will then dump it. We took our bank statements & documents, everything relating to our properties & cars (even those we've sold) and our medical files with us, as well as the most recent (12 months) of everything else (telephone accounts, rates bills etc.) I can not tell you how many times we've had to refer back to these documents here in Aus - not for any reason other than our own purposes (following up on mobile phone cancellations, deposit refunds etc etc.) - we even had a UIF query for an ex-employee who went on maternity leave from her current employer and UIF could not find any records that we made any contributions for her and did not want to pay her any UIF!! (What's new...?! ) If we did not have these records, she would have had no income for the duration of her maternity leave! We've had to query deductions form our accounts for debit orders which were already cancelled etc etc - I'm sure you get the picture. You think you're closing the door..... well, we STILL (2 years later!!) have problems with some of our stuff which should have been closed, and finalised.

Another thing which we've had to refer to more than once and especially now that we had to do our medicals again for our PR application (we came over on a 457) and but also for things such as allergies and follow up on existing/recurring conditions, was our medical records. Definitely take them with you!

I'd suggest you take everything for the past 12 months (telephone bills etc) and all your banking stuff & medical stuff for at least the last 36 months. For the rest you can ask a kind friend to store it for you in the back of their garage for a few years - just in case you have to refer back to any of those.

[Sparrow]

Reinard,

I wholeheartedly agree. If you can take it, take it. Very old bills and records that you know you won’t be using you can probably dump, but for the rest, bring it along.

The problem I found was to decide which records and documents you needs to bring with you on person and which you can send by container.

At the end of the day, I had a full box of documents (Bank statements, Tax Clearance Certificates, Resumes, Certificates, Ownership Agreements, Vaccination Cards, etc, etc, etc) that we had to take with us on the aircraft. It was really heavy and difficult to carry. I am glad I did it however, as we had to present a lot of these for reference purposes. It helped us to open our bank account on this end, apply for a credit card, secure a lease agreement, buy a car, and all the like. I also had to refer to these for purposes finishing up our business in SA.

In one instance however I did get it wrong. I was requested to furnish some documents, which I had thought okay to go with the container. Fortunately, I was able to play for extra time until they arrived. I guess the requirement will differ from the one person to the next, but if there is a remote chance that you will need it, TAKE IT!

Good luck