Originally Posted by richard-elly

Hello Michelle,
Glad to know we are not alone. We are in the same boat in that we want our savings to buy a house and not to dwindle away on just surviving, so we just went out and bought a house!!!! AAghhh. We move in on June 5th when our mortgage payments will start. So Richard needs to get his licence before this date so he can increase his earnings from temporary labourer to qualified electrician!! Then we can afford to pay the mortgage! The race is on!! How crazy are we? It's just that we started to look casually at houses, to get familiar with aussie houses..... and this one came up .....what can I say.....it was lovely......and we did not want to miss the opportunity.... We have also been accepted for the first time home buyers grant. Even though we owned a house in England it is the first time we have bought one in this country. You have to have a permanent visa though. We got $10,000. No paying it back either!! Wish us luck!

Originally Posted by ThomasandLynsey

Congratulations on buying your house! Where have you relocated to because the first time buyers grant sounds great!

Originally Posted by WendyC

You get a grant for your first home from every state I think. If I can find the website I'll post it for you

Originally Posted by richard-elly

So here we are 4 months down the line. And what an experience it has all been. It feels like we are the only english family who didn't emigrate to Brisbane, Perth or the Mornington Penninsula! I'm sure that is not true but it sure feels like it. We moved to Anglesea on the Great Ocean Road in Victoria. It was for a total life change. English life was full of indoor activities for the kids and Richard working a 14 hour day, 6 days a week.

Having never been to Australia before we picked Anglesea out of pure luck and have never regretted it. Our home for the first 3 weeks was on the Big 4 caravan park. They were amazing people who made us feel so welcome. We had those 3 weeks to find rented accomodation which was not easy as it was the start of the tourist season and all places had been let out. But luckily again we found one. It's a complete mess but nothing that a bit of elbow grease and paint couldn't fix. Those first 3 weeks were spent buying cars, getting tax numbers, getting driving licences, opening bank accounts! Basically getting a life again!

Richard is an electrician by trade and applying for his "licence to trade" is where all the trouble started! Boy were we unprepared for the saga that follows! In England we had all his qualifications transferred over to australian recognised qualifications. Then on arrival, we did nothing about his work for the first month, just concentrated on the above stuff. Then we inquired about how we get his licence. Richard was self employed, running his own successful business in England, but here that means nothing! Here he has to prove he is an electrician by the following process. First he needs to get a TRA certificate. We foolishly thought that the one we got in England whilst going through the emigration fiasco was the one they need. It's not! This TRA certificate we were told is for emigration purposes only and can not be used again! So we needed to apply for another one exactly the same, with exactly the same information, ie references etc. We thought this was stupid as we had already done it all so we got onto our local MP, who was just brilliant and got his secretary to look into it for us. Unfortunately, though he thought it was stupid himself, he said there was nothing he could do about it. So it took us another 6 weeks writing to people in England begging them to send us new references. It took this long because basically people are not interested and can't be bothered. Also we stupidly left all Richards Tax books from his business at his mums house thinking we would not need them. Eventually his mum posted them to us, as we needed to prove that he had been self employed. So we filled out the forms and sent it all off. The man we spoke to at the TRA office told us not to hold our breath as the committee only meet up once a month to view all applications for TRA certificates.....and we had just missed a meeting!!!! So this is the stage we are at. We are still waiting now for that meeting.

Once we get the TRA certificate we can then apply for a Class E licence. Which means Richard can work as a qualified electrician for another company. To be self employed, in other words to get his Class A licence, we have been told we would then need to do a 4 month college course with exam. AAagh!!
Just as well we had savings otherwise we would be stuffed. Luckily, in the mean time, Richard has been working as a "labourer" for an electrician on labourers wages, which is at least something. Every building site he has been onto people have said that they are desperate for electricians and that he should have no trouble finding work....once he gets his licence!!

All in all, we know that by the end of this year it will all be sorted. We came out here expecting the first 12 months to be difficult and because of that attitude none of this has been stressful. Richards working day is Mon - Fri 7:30 to 4pm, then he goes surfing! Not bad eh! It all comes out in the wash, eventually.
What have I learned from all of this? That there are things you have no control over or didn't anticipate. So instead of stressing about it or beating myself up for not having done better research, I just adopted the attitude of, "Oh well, we'll get there." Would I go back to england? No way! Life here is brilliant. I walk the dog on the beach every night, I body surf with the kids, we do outdoor activities.....The biggest thing we are learning is to be as laid back as the Aussies. No more English tight, stressed, stiff upper lip for me. We just go with the flow. Perfect.

Originally Posted by ThomasandLynsey

Congratulations on buying your house! Where have you relocated to because the first time buyers grant sounds great!

Originally Posted by Katep

My partner is an electrician, but doesn't really look into these things, so I found your post very helpful, thanks.

Do you have to have all the same information that you provided for first TRA? Do all the references have be within a certain date i.e no older than 12 months?

How did you change over the English qualitfications to Australian recognised qualifications?

Sorry for all the questions just want to make sure that if possible we can take everything with us.

Kate

Originally Posted by steve`o

TRA certificate application files in pdf format
the word doc is taken from BE and its a good guide to getting the spark's licence etc


I`ve got to do all this myself later this year so your personal experiences are very welcome and informative

please keep in touch and let us know how you get one

hope it all goes well for you guys
regards Steve

Originally Posted by JohnandMichelle

Hi again Steve - will keep you posted on our TRA escapades.... The ironic this is that you have to ring TRA to ask them to send you a form in the post, you can't download it - the only one online is a sample and you can't use that. It took them almost a week to send us ours - I had everything ready, just waiting on the form - what a waste of a week. They said that as John had been assessed back in Oct 2003, he would have to fill in everything again and include up-to-date refs. Luckily, he was still with the same job and we got a ref in 2005 for DIMIA and then got a ref from him before we left, so hopefully they'll be happy with. The next meet is the 14th April and we don't get in for that, the committee don't meet again until the 14th May. I sent it off yesterday by express next day signed for, etc., etc. So we'll see. We're hoping John can get a job as a labourer to an electrician until all the paperwork is sorted. Nightmare. What stage are you at Steve? Michelle x

Originally Posted by steve`o

TRA certificate application files in pdf format
the word doc is taken from BE and its a good guide to getting the spark's licence etc


I`ve got to do all this myself later this year so your personal experiences are very welcome and informative

please keep in touch and let us know how you get one

hope it all goes well for you guys
regards Steve

Originally Posted by Bosshogg

Having just quickly scanned through the forms, am I right in saying:

If you have had skills assessed previously by the TRA for migration purposes you need only fill in sections 2,3,4 and 12. They then can check back on the file they have on you and possibly fast track you.

Regards

Bosshogg

Originally Posted by steve`o

thats the way i understand it mate but it seems from an earlier post that if its been a while ( dont know how long the limit is ) that you have to apply in full as it were

awaiting confirmation from all you sparkies now in Aus
help needed on this one guys

regards Steve

Originally Posted by steve`o

thats the way i understand it mate but it seems from an earlier post that if its been a while ( dont know how long the limit is ) that you have to apply in full as it were

awaiting confirmation from all you sparkies now in Aus
help needed on this one guys

regards Steve