Permanent residency in Oz - how long did your visa take?

[sunnydelight]

I know a lot of people moving at the moment are going on other types of visas, but we just heard from our agent this morning that even though DH's job is on the priority list our permanent residents visa could take "anything up to nine months". We're a bit gobsmacked to be honest as we were under the impression that we were looking at 6-12 weeks and have just put our house on the market with that in mind!!! Our agent is pretty crap and it's quite possible he's just trying to cover his back and stop us nagging him on a regular basis, but I would be really interest in anyone else's experience.

well dh came over here on a spousal visa and as we already had dd1 - he received permanent residency. I thought other than that you had to be here for 2 years before you could apply for permanent residency. A friend of ours ( also on a spousal visa) got temporary residency - as they had not been married more than 5 years and did not have any children.... he had to wait two years before he could apply for permanent residency.

Can you not just check the immigration website for yourself rather than rely on the agent?!

probably not been much help.

Hopefully someone else can come along who is more helpful

info on visas etc

We were told it could take anything upto 6 months from the date they recieved the medicals/radiographs. Our agen did say it was quicker in his experience, but as a general guide, 6 months.

We submitted our application end Nov 2005 & had medicals done 3rd Jan 06. We have the OK on 15th Feb 06.

Our agent was great, although he did advise that we shouldn't put the house up UNTIL we had an OK. He had a client do this & the application was denied, client was homeless as he found a buyer & started the process. Was too far in to pull out.

We had until Jan 07 to enter Australia (so just under a year). Dh could enter sooner (say if we couldn't sell the house) to validate the visa (ours was a former resident), but we were here 27th June 06.

We were also strongly advised by him not to phone the immigration dept, as this could cause severe delays. His advise was just to sit tight!

oh sunny - I got confused - I thought you were hear already.

Eidsvold, we have permanant residency straight away, but maybe that is due to the visa type.

I know we have to be here 2 years before we can become citizens. Can't vote until we are.

i think it is for the spousal one - if you have been married less than five years - then you only qualify for temporary residency. BUT if you have a child or have been married more than five years you automatically get permanent residency. I think the aim is to stop people getting married just to get a spousal visa.

For our friend - 2 years to get permanent residency and then another two years before applying for citizenship from what I remember him telling us. Dh is eligible for his citizenship - just needs to get his butt into gear and get some pics done.

Different visas then. There are way too many!

Hope your dh gets it sorted soon!

Hi sunnydelight,

different visa classes have vastly different processing times.

Our took 7 months from lodging to request for PCC's (penal clearance certificates) and medicals). This request is normally the final step and visas are normally issued within 6-10 weeks thereafer.

We are applying for a subclass 136 visa for PR.

A fabulous resource for information can be found Here

Good luck

Thanks for the info guys. Dejags, that link isn't working (or not for me anyway!) - would you mind trying to post it again, or just give me the address as any resources are very welcome

sorry sunnydelight.

britishexpats.com/forum - can't get the link thingy to work. try to cut and paste.

HTH

Oh no dejags - another site to become totally addicted to Thanks for the info!