Originally Posted by Silver Surfer

We arrived in Brisbane in April this year on a 410 Retirement Visa. We found out on the 19 December that the financial requirements were going to be increased from $600,000 to $800,000 from the 1 Jan 2004. It was panic stations for a while as we could not meet the new figure and feared that we would not be able to join our sons in OZ. We sent in our application on the 24 December 2003. After meeting all the financial requirements, medical and police checks we were given until August 2004 to covert our capital assets into liquid. From what I have read the time allowed seems to vary according to your case officer. Have you applied for your visa yet? From what I am reading it seems likely that the 410 Retirement Visa is likely to be phased out in the very near future.

Have you looked at the BERIA site at [email protected]. This site is for British retiree's in Australia - all have either been through the process or are going through it. The site is very informative and I am sure someone will be able to answer your question.

I hope this has been of help and wish you every success with your application. Please contact us if we can assist you with anything else.

Silver Surfer

Originally Posted by Alan Collett

Hello Terry.

I've had a read through this thread and I think you are asking about the period of time that is available to raise the necessary capital when you have lodged an application for a Retirement visa (presumably through the Australian High Commission in London).

As a general rule you can expect a Retirement visa application to be assessed initially within a couple of weeks of it being received. If you are relying on the equity in your property to meet the capital requirement you will most likely be given 49 days to have the funds available. If this isn't likely to be met you can ask for an extention of time, but you will need to submit evidence that you are taking active steps to sell the property. If this application is successful you will be granted another 49 days to have the capital in liquid form (ie in your bank account).

In the last few months we have found that this 49 day extention is available on a couple of occasions - after that the AHC will generally want to decide the application.

As you may know alreday, you should recognise that it is expected that an application for a Retirement visa in its present form will cease to be an option from the imminent future => we expect the present visa category to be replaced with an "Investor Retiree" visa, which will require the applicant to lodge a fairly sizeable sum of money (A$500,000 has been mentioned by the Federal Government) with an Australian State or Territory Government for an as yet unspecified period prior to the grant of the visa.

If you want to explore your prospective Retirement visa application more fully I suggest you might call my office in Southampton on 023 80 488777 and ask for my migration agent colleague Helen O'Hare.

Hope this helps.

Originally Posted by gdad

Alan

I did look into using Go Matilda but thought myself able to deal with application forms etc. particularly as it seems straightforward compared to some of the other visa complexities. Should we be successful I will contact you for your advice on financial matters.

Terry