We had a request for our bond the other day, but as we haven't sold our house and our consultants put the para on the end of letter "get in touch if you require an extension" we got in touch via e-mail and said we wouldn't realistically meet the date of the 7th September 2004, so could we request an extension, I thought I might as well copy in the case officer aswell, just in case the consultants dragged their heels.

Today I got an e-mail from both, Consultants saying sorry immigration dept won't accept that reason, "house not sold", realise this a stressful time but tough tits!!! give em your money!!! Case officer's reply, yeh sure that's not a problem you've now got until the 7th October 2004.

Which would you go with????I'd do a poll, but I think it might be a forseeable outcome

A bit confused, to say the least!!!

Funny how often this question seems to come up, either the panic about not having the money without selling the house or the panic because the applicants didn't realise the bond was needed before Visa grant.

Seems to me that If the Case officer has extended for you then that is the date. DIMIA call the shots.

Given how long it takes to get a Visa surely there was plenty of time to arrange an advance on the house or a second mortgage? Why leave it till the Bond money is requested to start?

Do you have a potential sale? Is your sale going to give the cash in time? If not then get an advance.

I think I would always go with DIMIA on this, especially as it has come from the horses mouth, so to speak

Thanks EricB
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, we now wish we had put the house on the market when we got back from Oz in May. But the other thing was that we didn't have a crystal ball, how did we know that we would definately be granted a visa, we might have sold the house, gone into rented only to find out we were not successful. We have 3 children and want to keep everything as relatively cool and calm as we can. But point taken!

Sam

Hiya

How about emailing the CO back and showing him/her the email from DIMIA and asking for their advice on this?

Lindsey

I guess my tone was a little terse... It has been a long day and I sometimes read this forum with little real enthusiasm, sorry you caught me in one of my more cynical ( if that is the right word ) moments... We too have two kids to worry about, we just were reassurred that once meds were requested it should all be ticking the boxes..
We are a few weeks ahead of you in that we are just waiting for the passports back. We are facing two moves, one to rented after completion of sale and one in a few months to Aus. The stress doesn't diminish for a good while I guess...

Don't worry about it, you had very valid points to make. Actually when I got off expats, I sighed a large sigh and said to hubby (Paul) why the hell didn't we put house on market ages ago, but he did remind me that consultants had actually advised against this and said don't do anything until they let us know. So they are partly to blame (have to blame someone)! I think we are probably going to just have to bite the bullet and borrow against the mortgage, at least then we'll meet the deadline, and then it's only the sale of the house holding us up. We were really hoping to go this year, but if things carry on this way, (I don't think we'll get much joy through summer holidays) we'll still be here in January.

Were are you going? We're off to Perth (Mandurah) or round abouts. We went to Oz in April for a rekkie and did Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney. Perth we found to be more for us, simply because it wasn't long out of the city before you found yourself in space and good value homes. Mandurah was clean and modern and seemed to have everything for us.

Have a nice evening.

Sam and Paul

definitely agree with wmoore!

Thanks for letting me off the hook. I am shocked that your consultants advised against marketing too soon, they should have already assessed your chances of meeting the visa pass requirements anyway and must have known that you would need to stump up sharpish. Perhaps they just assumed that you would get a second mortgage or had a lump under the sofa cushions

We are now in the situation (after putting the house on the market at the start of June, - roughly the same time as paying the bond) that the buyer is pushing for us to complete by mid Aug. This is too quick for us in that we didn't want to leave till late Oct. We now are obliged to rent here and waste more money, better than losing a buyer though.. Still, we get that mortgage advance settled all the sooner I suppose.

We are planning in settling around Mackay in QLD, and have already registered the kids in school for the new year. We haven't actually visited Aus. We take the view that a couple of years is needed to really make our minds up anyway and this is the only way to do that. We also feel we need to take a risk at this point in our lives.

We chose Mackay for a number of factors, - size, employment rates, house costs, location, all year climate, recommendation etc, nothing stopping us moving if we hate it on sight.

All the best

EricB