JenJen

Hi

Was just wondering how long from the time You decided you wanted to go to live in Australia to the time you got settled in rented or your own home and also how stressful you thought it was and any hints and tips for coping strategies.

I'm a homebody who isn't initially good with change so taking all this a bit tough.

Hubby emailed a company in Melbourne October last year asking if they had any vacancies for the type of job he does, as he noticed they were advertising for other positions and interviewing succesful applicants at the end of last year, he got invited to interview last December which was held locally and then told they would let him know in the New Year, about the 3rd of January we get an email saying they would create a position for him. End of Feb we fly out and spend two weeks looking at places to live schools, houses, the company etc, we get back and they emailed to say they would have liked us out there by September, we kept pushing for a pr though and after alot of thought they offered to sponsor us on a PR visa. Well it's taken ages but we've now got everything certified and just waiting for a copy of the contract hubby signed, it says on i think it's the immi website it takes about 3 - 6 months to get an answer _ have no idea how accurate that is, please tell me if it's taken some of you longer?
So far it's been a year from hubby applying to them?

We're now looking to put our house up for sale and go into rented so that when we have the visa in our hands we can just go, of course having explained the type of person I am you can imagine i'm sweating bullets and panicking already, part of me wants this all done and out the way and the other part of me is wondering if I can cope with the stress.
The last time we moved I was pregnant with DS2 and thought I was going to explode with stress, not sure how much of that was pregnancy and how much was the move though.

Please share your experiences however good, bad, ugly (lol), could do with seeing some distant light at the end of the tunnel as I feel we're on a long road and this is just the beginning.

Thanks

Jen

shiels

Think we have been extremly lucky with our situation............As OH has recently been granted 'Citizenship by Descent'!!!!! But this was'nt how our application began.......
We filled in loads of online assessments and spoke to several agents, failed the majority of them, until we spoke to Ian Harrop, who told us that because OH mom was Australian born then he should apply for the Citizenship......all the other agents knew this too but not one of them suggested this!!!!!! Thats why I would recommend Ian Harrop to anyone.
Once the application had been put in, the citizenship was granted within a month, although we did'nt know for 6 weeks. He's now got an Aussie passport and I've submitted my 'Spouse Visa' application for me and the kids this week and Ive heard threads saying that this can be granted really quickly, anywhere between 4-12 weeks!!!!!!
We will be putting the house up for sale after christmas and hopefully be going out around May 07....OMG!!!!
We started seriously looking into this when OH lost his job in April 05 as we had nothing to lose then, but if we knew what we know now we could have gone years ago!!!!! Oh well.....................Good Luck to everyone whatever their situation.............. C x

esperanza

Well, we aren't there yet but if all goes according to plan then it will be about 18 months for us from initial application for job in Oz through to arriving there.
Some of that delay is us resigning from jobs here and allowing plenty of time for house sale to go through (a good thing as it turns out as the process is starting to seriously DRAG!).