rita

Hi,

My Australian partner and I are are now in England. We've been together since Mar 03. We were going to apply for a defacto visa whilst I was in Oz last Aug but we were advised to wait because in the previous 16 months which we classed ourselves as being defacto we had been apart for 5 months as he was studying in oz and I had a wedding to go to in England and no work visa in Oz so I stayed to pay my flight back to Oz, so we had only been living together 11 months. My queries are:

1) I got my medical/xray done at the HSA in Brisbane and also got many documents certified by an Australian Justice of the peace. The question is are these valid if I apply in England or will i need to do them again here? Obviously the doctor is an approved doctor for immigration in Australia-would that count here?


2)Second question is we are hoping to hand it in end Jan/mid feb 05. We spent 6 weeks apart in Jun/Jul 04 would they look at that as not being a full 12 month defacto even though we have been together for 22 months? I had to return to England for a christening and funeral and he had to stay to study and it wasn't financially viable for him to come for a week or 2.

3)Finally, with all this toing and froing we haven't been able to rent/buy a house, etc as i haven't been able to work, we have been living with his parents and we live here with mine, what we have so far is:
joint bank account for a year and also joint credit cards. Photos at christmas, new years, easter, weddings, birthdays, holidays etc, joint christmas cards, valentines cards, tickets to shows, phonebills & emails from when we were apart, joint sponsorhip for world vision, joint letters/postcards from friends, letters addressed to both of us, copy of form adding Chris as my beneficiary for superannuation, joint itinery from flight to his cousins wedding, copy of tax return stating me as his defacto, copy of letter to income support in England stating him as my defacto and a lot of other similar stuff but is it 'official' enough and does it look dodgy the fact we have been keeping anything and everything for the past 1 1/2 years?


Arghhhhhhhh I went through all this last Aug!


Thanks, Good luck in your personal crusades.x

rubbeldiekatz

Hey Rita,

I have done my medical at the HSA in melbourne....like you I applied (yesterday actually) for my visa offshore and there was no problem at all...as for the certified documents, I dont think youll have a problem with them when you got them certified in australia....as for the other questions, you better wait until somebody else replies :-)

good luck, markus

rita

HI Markus,

If you only applied yesterday how do you know there is no problem? Do you have an agent who advised you? Where are you applying from, I guess that doesn't matter, offshore is offshore!

Thanks!

good luck!x

rubbeldiekatz

cause I actually went to the embassy (berlin) yesterday and I had a chat to my case officer - she checked everything and it was all good except for the missing aussie police check.... where are you applying ?

rita

London, but I presume its the same though I can't go in and speak to anyone. Scary stuff, first time it was fun getting everything together but now its just a boring headache! Ah well, it'll be worth it!

x

rubbeldiekatz

cant you make an appointment at the embassy ? thats what I did....

bondipom

London used to have a walk in counter service but that is now limited in its scope. Partner visa applications need to be posted and visas can no longer be evidenced in person.

mlbonner

Hi Rita,

The documents would be fine (think of a UK applicant who has their 888 Stat Decs certified by an Aussie JP etc).
When did you get your meds done - they only have 12 months validity. ie: you have to enter Aus within 12months of getting them done. If you're running out of time you may want to get them done again

IMO the 6 weeks would be okay, so longs there was a good reason (funeral sounds like a good reason to me)

No, it looks good and will make your application a lot easier!!
Anything from a bank/insurance/national company etc is official. The 'unofficial' stuff is things like; photos, cards, tickets etc. For every non-official try and have an official piece and you'll be fine. You have more stuff than I did I think!

Good Luck!!

linnie2003

Goodluck with your application Rita
I got my defacto visa at the end of last year. I had my meds done in UK and ended up submitting my application on shore- it did result in my application taking an extra couple of weeks while the meds were checked out to make sure that they were genuine, (which stressed me out at the time but I shouldn't have worried, no problems). It took in total about 6 weeks from handing in my application to getting my visa.
I think the stressful bit is getting together your evidence, looking back I shouldn't have worried! I'm sure you'll be fine. Hope it goes well.
l