spanishlullaby

Hello everyone, im new to this website and hope you can answer my query...ok as the title says how much? i guess it's probably a needle in a haystack type question but id really like to have a rough idea of how much the whole process will cost.
The reason i ask is we live in Spain and my husband works from home for a UK/USA based company and has recently been offered a job transfer to Florida on very good money. I do love Florida and it would be great to have the security of a job offer straight away but deep down i have a passion for Perth and one day always saw myself moving there. We have 2 children 7 and 18 months so wherever we go it would need to be for a long period for their security. The trouble is we dont have any job offers in Australia so Florida seems to be the only option.
If we decided to ditch the safety net of job security in Florida and go with our hearts for Australia how much would it roughly cost us without work? (my husband qualifies on the skilled migrant visa), including visa/solicitor fees, flights, rent, getting started etc....i know it will vary from person to person but id just like a rough idea.
We do love Spain by the way but do not believe it holds the best of opportunities for our childrens future
Sorry for waffling and thanks in advance!

LisaD_uk

Hi spanishlullaby
We have spent the best part of 3 thousand on tra visa application and agency costs so far and we haven't even got to the medicals or anything yet so its not cheap but i couldn't really say how much more than that. I think shipping fees are aroun 4 thousand. There maybe alot of other people on here that have done it already that will know more.
Good luck in making your decision. BTW we went to florida last year for a holiday it was good but we still prefer OZ.
Lisa
xxxx

chrispy

Hi,
Here are some ball park figures...

Visa with agent £3000
Visa without agent ~£1000 to 1800
Medicals ~ £400 per person
Shipping 20 ft container (3bed house) ~£3600 (add 3% of value for insurance)
Shipping 40ft container (4bed house) ~£4800
Pets ~£1000 each
Air fares ~£700 (make sure you arrange 40Kg baggage)
Rental in Aus 1 months deposit ~£500

Then you would need car, things you didn't bring, phone, internet etc

These are very rough estimates from what we have done and what i have read

Cheers and good luck

RooksieJ

depends on how many times you make the trip

chrispy

oh yes, if you decide to be a ping pong pom then multiply parts 2 to 5 by 3, 4, 5 etc

RooksieJ

and start collecting green shield stamps

GinaUK

It's not quite as bad as that

Getting the skills assessment and the visa cost us exactly £2,409. This included agent's fees of £940. It also included the medicals which were £160 each (two adults).

Gina

chrispy

Sorry, you are right, ours were just over £400 for the two of us, ~£200. I seem to remember a few threads here where visas with agent cost ~3000 and one person who posted a thread saying they were ripped off as they ended up paying £6000
http://britishexpats.com/forum/showt...t=visas+ripped

Reading that long thread £3000 seemed the average amount.

GinaUK

I think the key-word there is "ripped off" . When choosing an agent it's important to pick one who quotes an all-inclusive fee (not charging by the hour).

Agent fees will also depend on how complicated the skills assessment is and how complicated the visa application is. Previous marriages, step-children, medical issues etc will have an impact on the costs. Ours was all straight-forward, hence the agent fees were £280 for the skills assessment and £660 for the visa. All quoted to us upfront so we knew what's what.

Gina

chrispy

[QUOTE=GinaUK;4441741]I think the key-word there is "ripped off" . When choosing an agent it's important to pick one who quotes an all-inclusive fee (not charging by the hour).

I wasn't refering to the 'ripped off' bit, if you look at the number of replies (69) and read them then you would seen that £3000 was about average. I think yours wasn on the cheaper side so i stand by the original estimate. It is imperative though as you say to get an agent that gives fixed fees, prefeably one who has favourable reviews on sites like this.

want2bthere

applied 136 visa just had meds done and so far cost us about £1500 ( no agent)

tracey x

Uuuh Patsy

Not sure why anybody would want to employ an agent. Its a relatively simple process. Especially if you are an MODL. I think people just get a bit overwhelmed at the start of the process.

LisaD_uk

We paid £1700 for our agent and without her we would still be trying to sort out our TRA so for me this was money well spent.
Lisa
xxxx

jeffseye

Any agent recommendations what company`s
thank you

grahampaula

Good luck this time RooksieJ