Question on Deadline for first Entry date
 

Hi,

Hurrah, got the letter I was long waiting for :) (Auzi independent
skilled) It says I have to enter Auzi no later than mid November 03. I would like to postpone it for another 6 months due to personal reasons.

My question are,
1. Has any one successfully postponed the fist entry date.
2. Does this have any negative impacts, what so ever
3. Say I managed to postpone the date, would there be a risk of any
sort of future immigration laws negatively affecting me.

Thanks in advance

Hi,

You could always try emailing your case officer. I believe this date is based on your medical and police check, so I assume that if you only just received your visa then you must have front loaded your application with your medical. It's tricky, but my only advice would be to get some professional advice, because you don't want to risk losing your visa.

Adrian

I *think* you can validate your visa. From what I understand you just need to get to Australia before the date on your visa to get it stamped. Once you have done that you can be out of the country for up to 6 months. You could (if your money situation allows it) just go for a visit before Nov....call it a fact finding mission....and then come back to the UK and stay for up to 6 months.

I'm sure I have heard of somebody else doing this (a sister of a friend rather than reading it on here). I could be totally wrong so I would check with your contact at the DIMIA.

Good luck.

I believe that you have to enter Australia before the date specified to validate your visa. After that you have to spend two years out of the five in Oz so hypothetically you could go and validate (stamp) your visa on a trip to Oz and then go back say two and a half years later and then remain in Oz and that gives you the right to remain etc. I may be wrong but I believe it is tricky to not go before the date you should go and when I spoke to my agent he said some people just went for a day in order to validate as they could not spare the time. I only had about five weeks in which to enter and so had to rush to take an unplanned trip - which was costly.

I believe that it can make things quite tricky if you don't enter by the date and you have to have exceptional circumstances. Australian immigration legislation is very tightly written and from what I have read exceptions are fairly rare. I am sure others will be able to advise you more fully than I can.

Regards
Elaine