wolves

GUD DAY MATES!

Can anyone help me and my husband, At the moment we are still waiting for my husbands TRA to come back, even thou we sent it off in the new year 04, we did have a small delay cos the bank didnt pay enough transfer charges so we had to send another 10 dollars, then we had a letter off TRA saying it was being processed, any ideas when we will get a reply? We even paid the higher price to get it back in 2 months, do you think we would be able to get any money back or not?
My husband and I are having a debate at the moment on which visa to apply for the SKILLED INDEPENDANT or STNI, Which is quicker? My husband is fully qualified motor mechanic and I work for letting agent. Please help as we are getting depressed with this shit country and want to be over in oz asap to spend the afternoons on the beech with kids while they are still young.
cheers.

teach

Hiya,
Have you got enough points is the question? We were going to go down the 136 Ind route but just before my NOOSR came back the points went up. Unless we can cough up some dosh we are unable to get the extra 5 points as we didn't bother doing a TRA for Andrew. We now realise that was a silly mistake to make and are now trying to go down the STNI route. We don't mind this and have no probs living somewhere other than our first choice for 2 years if it gets us to Oz. So it's STNI for us, it might well be that in 2 years we don't want to move anyway. Only you can make the decision about which visa to go for, best of luck deciding.
Sarah

sdwis

If you plan on going with STNI, you won't be spending much time at the beach since the current states that support this scheme are Vic, Tas, and SA, not QLD or WA where many claim to spend their afternoons at the beach. Do you have enough points for regular skilled independent migration now that the mark is 120? If not then STNI would be the way to go, and could shorten your process to 4-6 months after your application is submitted to DIMIA, but the actual time for an STNI grant from the state could also be 1-3 months.

wolves

we still have enough points for either but as you say stni seems alot quicker.Applying for stni, have you heard of sending a cv to the state and if you are approved they then send you the application forms as apposed to appliying for skilled independant in the normal way and then being sort of picked out by them for stni.or have i got it all wrong

sdwis

You can do it either way. If you have enough points you can go ahead and submit your app to DIMIA applying under visa subclass 136 once you have your successful TRA assessment. Then if you are granted STNI the state will notify DIMIA who will pull your application out of the pile, then change your subclass to 137 and speed their processing somewhat.

You can actually apply for STNI without waiting for your skills assessment results in Victoria, all you need is your CV, their application, and a completed agreement to live in the state for 2 years minimum. I'm sure that others can tell you about SA or Tasmania's requirements. Some of the states have rules which require you to secure a job offer before you can be nominated for STNI for some professions, please check to see if yours falls under this category.

Good Luck to you.....

wolves

cheers i will look into that