Yep I'll ditto that - if your application is straight forward I'd do it yourself, Agents of course have their place but only if it's a complicated case in my opinion This site has all the answers

thanx wol will look into it!

where do i start??

Try this: skilled migration for starters.

Will you be using your skills?

Not really - Australia has a land mass of 7,686,850 sq km compared to the (entire) UK's 244,820 sq km which actually makes it only *cough* 31 (and a bit) times bigger. Maybe the figure quoted 70 times is for England only.

yep hubby's a finance director for a building society (chartered accountant) and i'm a midwife, so we should be ok shouldn't we?

Yes you'll be fine I've looked at your profile and you're still young too so I can't see any reason for you to need an agent, unless of course you'd rather use one for peace of mind, or you have complications like divorces and step children, serious illnesses or owt like that.

If there's anything I can help you with just email or pm me

Kath x

thanx kath, forgot to mention, hubby's 44 in december!!

Usually Denise there is one main applicant - so if you get enough points (should be able to find the points test on that website I gave you, think it's in Booklet 6) then it doesn't matter how old your husband is. If you decide to go on your husband's skills though you'll need to file your visa application before he hits 45

thanx. i think we should just go for it.

Yep that's what I reckon too

There are lots of reasons to (and not to!) use an agent but i think that i would stop short of 'talking someone out of' using an agent ...

(and yes i realise you didn't actually say this but your talk of 'sharks' is definitely off putting)

... what happens if they go it alone and have a problem with their tra or visa? Personally i would not want to think that i may have influenced their result in that way.

To the op ... look at all the options and decide if you are happy to go it alone or if you want to use an agent (make sure they are MARA registered and you should avoid the 'problem' agents). Either way make sure it is your decision and that you are happy with it.

Good luck whatever you decide
Tiggs

All I can say is that we started with a MARA agent who is a "prominent citizen" in the field: he relieved us of some £4000 and was getting nowhere but hindering a very simple application. He was charging $5 for each email sent or received, $25 per fax page IIRC and the monthly bills were adding up all the time.

We dispensed with him and everything became quicker and a lot easier.

Just my opinion - not a recommendation!

I appreciate this was your recommendataion but it did come across a bit like you thought that all agents were a waste of time - which isn't the case!

This is a good reason to pick an agent with 'fixed costs'.
In my experience (we talked to about 10 agents before signing up with one) different agents included (or excluded) different parts of the costs in their quote however they all listed the items not included and gave us an estimate of complete cost (inc application fees etc) so we were able to make a fairly straight forward comparison. I didn't talk to anyone who you paid 'as you went along' the way you did - and i think that i would have avoided them if i had!

The visa *was* fixed cost - but the sting (apart from the exorbitant price) was in the tail - the ongoing charges he made for everything. For example, we received several emails of one word - "no" - each cost $5! My fault for not appreciating how he could run up hundreds of dollars a month in "disbursements".

A prominent MARA agent too..............