AVACON

Thanks, I appreciate your support!

family_of_4

Thank you

family_of_4

Congratulations, i'm really pleased for you. Now the planning begins...

Sammyjo3

Hi, I am now looking into the PNP again for Alberta. Can you just apply for this from outside of Canada with no job offer/LMO?

I have read up, it's just all going over my head a bit.

Can anyone advise how long it took them on this process to obtain a visa? Do you have to pay the fees upfront ?

Mikeypm

A belated congrats as only checked out the thread today , when are you planning to land?

I thought PR took forever judging by this thread however 17 weeks into LMO application and still no answer

newharbour

Hi,

Just wanted to show off my signature and thought this thread was relevant...

Sammy, don't know what alberta scene is like but community identified stream might be an option for you, no job offer or lmo with that one.

My status is 'application received' in London, from reading people's timelines it should take about a month to turn into 'in process' then another 5 weeks to request meds, without allowance for strikes.

newharbour

Thanks for the post, I enjoyed reading it. I'm about to buy an SUV too, been checking kijiji, just wondering what you did regarding the inspection, did you get it checked before you bought it? Do you just go into a garage and ask them to check it over? Also any tips regarding insurance appreciated, I have a document that shows I have 8 years no claims, did you have any friction getting insurance? Sounds like you wanted to get your NS license straight away, I presume you could have used your UK license for a bit, or it mandatory to have an NS license to get insurance?

Kaye5

We got a few dealer cars checked as "pre-purchase inspection". Trouble was, all the cars we wanted were "do not buy" in the garage's opinion (not unexpected as with out limited budget we expected things to be wrong, but they also said they were way overpriced). The car we did buy we got from a private seller. It had all the service records and we had a good feeling about the seller. Quite the opposite from the dealers (no service knowledge, overpriced, etc - dealers seem similar to the UK, personally wouldn't trust any one of them). We did a Carproof check just to make sure there were no liens and it wasn't registered as stolen.

We didn't get a PPI done on the car we bought - not something I would recommend, but we were up against the clock and the car wasn't expensive so we had money left in the budget to repair if need be. We insisted on a new MVI which they paid for and they got $500 worth of work done at the same time. I guess people with more budget have more scope but we were in the under $5k bracket and that doesn't get you much and certainly no dealer warranty. You can book a car in for a PPI at a local garage before you commit to buy and the seller should either take it for you or allow you to take it if there is insurance coverage.

With a private sale, you need to get a receipt and pay the tax yourself at the vehicle office - dealers will pay the tax for you and charge you. The seller removes the plates so you need to figure out how to get new plates without driving a car with no plates (if you follow me). You can get a temp vehicle permit but we didn't bother - our seller dropped off the car to our driveway, we registered it, got the plates. The plates just screw in. You need insurance before you can register the car.

Insurance - like Family of 4 we shopped around and found Johnsons and Bauld to be similar. Johnsons insisted on 6 years' of "no claims" letters from our past insurers. Didn't get that far with Bauld so don't know what they want. Was about $750 for the year I think. Others have recommended trying TD and don't dismiss local insurance brokers - worth a try.

License - Johnsons wanted copies of our NS license and UK license. We exchanged licenses right away at the vehicle registry office. You just take in both parts of your UK license and they swap it for a fee $73 I think. They will give you photocopies of your UK license if you ask as they take it off you. You'll also need to do an eye test. We couldn't see a reason for holding off exchanging licenses - you have 3 months, but might as well get it done. The NS driver license has also been useful as it is accepted ID at a lot of places (government issued photo ID).

Licensing and vehicle registration is all on here:

http://www.gov.ns.ca/snsmr/rmv/

No doubt there is something I forgot but that's most of our experience.

newharbour

Thanks for that.

So the plates don't go with the car, each owner unscrews and keeps the plates when he sells it? Why do they do that?!

Did you walk into a random garage and ask them to do an inspection?

I read in the wiki that you should bring a driver's history report from DVLA, did you get that done?

Kaye5

See below.

newharbour

Thanks Kaye,

That seems extremely wasteful to renew plates every two years - do they at least recycle them?!

Would you recommend the same garage?

Siouxie

The majority of Provinces do not require you to renew plates every 2 years. Are you sure you are not confusing this with renewing your validation sticker for your plate?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle...ada#Life_cycle

Kaye5

That's what I meant - just didn't word it clearly.

No, they don't chuck out the plates, I meant renew the validity.

newharbour

Haha, ok so they learned that one already.

newharbour

I tried speaking to the DVLA and all they will do for £5 is send me a document that says I had a licence from x to x. It won't give any details of endorsements etc. All details of endorsements are on the paper counterpart licence and no where else. I expect insurance companies in NS should accept the paper counterpart licence in place of a 'driver's abstract' as they call it?

Insurance history and no claims statement is a bit easier to get.

p.s. Do you know what it was you got from DVLA?