Nikki.P

Hiya, wonder if anyone can help. Probably getting myself in a panic about something completely irrelevant but trying to fill in the above AQIS form B534
(6/00) that goes with your goods when they are shipped.

Two of the questions are making me dither. One is about whether or not you are shipping medicines and I could just carry all the medicine in my hand luggage wth a copy of the prescription which should I hope sort that one out. But the main questions is about whether you are shipping any furniture or other articles of wood. Am I supposed to declare everything that is made of wood, i.e. coffee tables, wardrobes chests of drawers etc? I am not taking anything made of bamboo or rattan but the wooden article list is fairly substantial. Any help from anyone who has already done this would be great.

thanks
Nikki

mr mover

Just declare that you have items of wooden furniture, you are then covered ,if Aqis check your shipment and find undeclared furniture then they call in customs, and then the FUN begins .........................mm

Nizcac

When my aunt & uncle went out - they went with the declare everything moto and you can't get caught out. My advise is if you are not sure - declare it. If you needed to - you have done it. If you didn't need too - no harm done!

Hope it all goes well

MartinLuther

We just said that we had furniture and articles made of wood but that there was no untreated wood, or bamboo, etc...

asher

what is the problem with bamboo? I want to take my bamboo rocker

Kim

mbike

AQIS use the B534 to assess how much time they will need to check your effects. For wood, put "household furniture" then highlight anything unusual. If your packers inventory is vague, they will pull in anything marked "Kitchen" for food, "tools" for dirt and "clothing" for shoes. Ours did, anyway.

Mark

mr mover

The b534 is a customs doc , nothing to do with AQIS.
Aqis will refer to it if they find a descrepency , [IE undeclared goods ].
If your smart you will get your packers to put any thing that has touched soil or food related ,into a number of boxes marked with a "Q" its amazing how much we appreciate this when unloading containers.
And it saves you money .................mm

Nizcac

Hi Mr Mover,
Does this mean that if there is a Q on the box it is for possible quaratine and will definately be opened?

Also we will be bringing a 10ft trampoline with us - shippers over here(UK) have told us to clean it with Jeyes Fluid ~(Super strong disinfectant). Do you think this will be ok or are we kidiing ourselves? The trampoline isn't submerged it sits ON the garden.

Niz

yanH

We brought a trampoline with us and it got through customs with no issues . We simply wiped it clean before it was packed.

In terms of wooden furniture we were told to fill in the form by using the phrase 'used household furniture' and apparently this would cover it.

mbike

Hi.

This is from the Aus Gvmt ICE program guidelines:

All UPE items reported to the ICS on an electronic UPE (B534) statement are referred across to the AQIS UPE application and will require an initial physical inspection. Any UPE items within the UPE application that require more than the initial physical inspection (e.g. fumigation treatment) will be
upgraded to an AQIS Import Management System (AIMS) Quarantine Entry (QE) and charged accordingly.

Doesn't this suggest that every B534 automatically goes accross to AQIS? The reason I am so interested in this is that we were told by our movers here in Perth that our unexpectedly high (for us) AQIS charges were due to AQIS estimating how much time they would need to inspect our container. As the B534 is the only documentary evidence of the container contents apart from the packing list (which was filled in by our UK packers) I am keen to know if AQIS based their estimate on this (which I filled in) or the packing list (which the packers did). I was annoyed at packing time in the UK since we had completed a comprehensive inventory of box contents which we provided to the packers. They ignored it and filled in very loose descriptors. When the AQIS man saw the descriptors we had written on the outside of the boxes he said 75% shouldn't have been pulled out for inspection. FWIW we were charged $640 + gst AQIS inspection fee. The inspection, which we attended, took under 1/2 an hour.

Cheers

Mark

mr mover

YES ,we will assume you have read the Aqis web site and are aware of what is required of you , and your shipment will generally get a quick check........... mm ps trampolines make sure the pipes have no nasties living inside,

mr mover

Mark your docs are lodged with your agent in Aust and Aust customs ,AQIS will check your shipment no matter what, if the find illegal items/substances they then refer to your B534 If you have not declared on your form what they have found they then call in customs , i have seen them totally unpack a 40 ft container from the states when steroids were found , an ex Falklands veteran who had a few souvenirs in his shipment, undeclared military items, went to town on this one $ 5000 fine . and risked being deported.......... mm

mbike

Hi Mr Mover,

Wow that is scary. I have one more question which you might be able to answer. Our container was unloaded from the shipping container into a delivery container at the bond store. About 25 boxes were pulled out from the shipment (of 165 boxes) and left for the AQIS man to inspect. In your experience, who would pull these boxes out? Would it be people from AQIS or people from the agent company?

Thanks

Mark

mr mover

As we unload the containers the "load checker/storeman" is reading and ticking the inventory , as an item comes off that might be of interest to AQIS ,eg Garden tools, mower , kitchen boxes, wooden ornaments, camping equip,; these are placed on a Quarantine trolly, and kept separate from the rest of the shipment.
Aqis will sometimes demand 2or3 random boxes be opened, but generally this is only if they have a light work load- not very often...............mm