Emma10

My boyfriend is Aussie and im British, were stating our defacto visa in October, Im not sure if we should do it ourselves or whether to fork out the £900 for an agent? Could anybody give us any advice who has recently completed the visa or are going through it, Is a agent really necessary??

Also were a bit short on evidence of joint commitments, could anybody let us know on there experience on gathering evidence and if they havent had enough did there visa still go through.

Any advise would be appreciated

Cheers
Emma and Rob

pete jackson

We just did a standard permanent visa and considered using an agent but decided against it due to cost and we found the whole process fine as long as you take your time and read every thing carefully. Plus this forum is a great help, the amount of questions we asked when filling out the visa forms and getting really good answers to help us on the way. Hopefully someone will have some advice for you on the type of visa and evidence you are looking for. Put a seaech in on "visa evidence" or alike and it will bring you some good info useful threads for you. Pete

Jez & Lorraine

Hi - We didn't use an agent, did the whole thing ourselves. It did take an awful lot of research and reading of huge documents from DIMIA. A visit to the London Expo was also helpful in deciding which Visa to go for. As far as evidence is concerned I don't think you can put too much detail into your application. Ours was massive, but we obviously did the right thing because we got our visas. Good luck with your application.

surfsup

We are currently going for a 136 visa with no agent. We are still waiting for a final decision after originally starting process in january. People with agents look like they were acknowledged june - july time. So what is a relatively easy process in our case would definitely been speeded up by having an agent. Worth the money? Possibly for sharing the stress and having someone on the end of the phone.

Gold Coaster

Hi Emma & Rob,

I would suggest that if you do use an agent that you shop around a bit as the 900 pounds you have been quoted for a de facto visa sounds a bit steep to me. I know that we do not charge anything like that for that class of visa.

Good luck with it all

Tony

moneypenny20

I would never advise anyone to use an agent for a spouse visa. They are very straightforward and all the agent will do is suggest forms of proof of relationship which you may or may not have.

Do a search both on here and on the Immigration Forum - there are loads of threads on there with lists that other people have produced.

My machine is playing up at the moment so I can't give you my list but anything that has both names and the same address, copies of e-mails, letters, travel documents, bills, stat decs from family and friends etc etc etc.

Don't waste your money on an agent.

Emma10

Thanks for the reply, I will do some more research, and hopefully hear from some more people who have been through the same process, Ive got the application forms and they just seem quite daunting.
If you have any more advice it would be welcome