My sister is interested in moving to Australia. She is in banking and finance - i think she is an IFA. Could anyone recommend an agent who would be able to help her with the process. I did my own visa (as I'm a nurse it was pretty straight forward) - but as i have no knowledge of the skills process for the finance sector i have advised her to use an agent.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Debbie

Hi Debbie, this is my 1st post as i have only just registered.
As far as i know, migration agents are a total rip off in my experience (but some may know different).
The best route for me was to do it myself BUT with a little 'guidance' (albeit i'm a tradesman NOT banking and finance).
www.liveinaustralia.com is a very good 'guidance' website that i used and it's a very small fee to register and they are very helpfull.
Hope this helps your sis.

Hi Debbie

I've been in banking/finance for 23 years and found the easiest business skill for me to apply under was office manager, I had an NVQ in management. If your sister wants to apply for a skilled visa then as long as she has a qualification and proven experience in the field/job she wants to apply under then this will be straightforward. If she hasn't then she will probably find it beneficial to seek advice from an agent.

We've applied for our Visa without an agent, but our case if very straightforward.

If you post your questions under the immigration/visa forum I'm sure some of the agents who post on there will be able to help.

Good luck

Ali X

we are using ian harrop and associates they are not bad on price £3k all in.

good luck.

Contact George Lombard at www.austimmigration.com.au He regularly posts on the Migration forum and I've no doubt he will be able to help you.

We paid £1700.00 with Global Visas, and found them fantastic.

They are based in City of London too, so well handy for dropping paperwork in if you are city based.

Hi Debbie,

I applied for a de facto partner visa as my other half already has PR in australia - she used an agent and it cost her a fortune....so for mine I did it myself and it was pretty straightforward. I don't feel that anybody with reasonable intelligence and enough time to read the relevant guides needs an agent - but perhaps the de facto visa is a bit more straight forward than some types of visas....

at the end of the day you're still going to have to dig out all the paperwork and provide the information for all the forms, if she has the right skills then she should be ok - I felt it was all pretty black and white - have you been living together for over a year - yes etc etc

just my thoughts - I don't her full situation - but worth considering when talking about thousands of £££

We are using 'go matilda'
Just sent in my TRA application so i can't really comment on their success rate yet but they are very friendly and respond quickly to any queries
Their fees are very competitive also

Lee

Just be VERY CAREFUL who you use, we used a firm who we later found out are not reg'd migration agents.

Most of the work we did ourselves and really do not know what we paid for!!
In short they were Crap!!!

We even had to quote them on the legislation changes they knew nothing about!!!

Godd luck with it.

Cheers'en.

Hi to everyone who replied

thanks for all the advice - I'm sure with all this information she will be able to get herself sorted.

I'll have a cool beer for you all when I move to Buderim next week!!!!


Debbie

Hi Debbie
I realise you posted this ages ago but thought Id add my bit!!
We used Concept Australia based in Manchester and London. Cost about 1,ooo pounds in total for the two of us which IS a lot of money but was worth it for the sake of not stressing so much ourselves!
Only recommendation I would suggest is that you ask the agent to give you a list of all documentation you will need to have certified in advance so that you can have it done at solicitors all in one go, otherwise it will cost you for each appointment!
Hope that helps
hooch and lol