Hipster Contrarian

I'm still at the very, very early stages of looking at applying: it was meant to be done a few months ago, but unfortunately life events got in the way, and now I have to force myself to go back to the chest full of paperwork and try and make sense of it. I WILL get this sent off in the New Year...

Anyway, thanks to you all I have picked up some very useful pieces of information I haven't found elsewhere, but I wondered if the more experienced among you might be willing to contribute a few tips you've picked up along the way that might help those of us just starting out? Anything you can think of- I need all the help I can get, and I suspect that others might too!

Thanks in advance

cov-canuck

It may sound silly, but one thing I did was after filling all the forms out online and printing them, I went through and made sure every box was filled in (obvious). I then got coloured sticky dot things and put a red dot everywhere I needed to sign, and a green dot everywhere my husband needed to sign. We then each signed them all, each double-checked it, then removed the sticky dots when we were satisfied.

Also...try splitting the application into easy to manage sections with their supporting information. Up until you stuff it all into an envelope, you can keep it in as many sections as you need to keep it all straight.

iaink

Pretend e-client doesnt exist.

dozzzzy

I concur

Dozzzzy

OzRob

Read the requirements and instructions a few times and make sure it all makes sense. Then put them aside for a week or two then read them a few more times. Only when you can recite them in your sleep is it time to attack the forms.

Airseir

Make sure you understand why you want to immigrate and what you hope to obtain from the life change. Then make sure that your plans will make these objectives a reality. The rest is just jumping through hoops.

Hipster Contrarian

Thank you all- and obvious is good, no matter how silly it may seem to you now!

This is interesting: could you maybe expand a bit please?

For my part, I don't think the streets are paved with gold, and I don't think I'd be moving to a bigger version of England but with more nature! I posted this back in August, and it still rings true for me:
More than that, I don't know. I just know that I want to live abroad and experience a whole different culture and range of attitudes. There's so much world out there that I don't want to confine myself just to Britain (lovely though it can be) if I have the opportunity not to!

Steve&Tanya

I agree with all the previous pieces of advice, but the main thing for me is not to put your life on hold whilest waiting for the application to be processed. The info gathering and form filling is vitaly important, but the wait is the real killer.
Enjoy what the UK has to offer whilest you are still here, don't feel guilty about applying for a new job or promotion and make the most of spending time with family and friends.

Keep visting this forum, it will help to keep you sane during this whole process.

Best of luck with your application

britishvixen21

* Make your application idiot proof

*make it proffessional looking,sub divide sections set it out in the order that they ask on the document checklist.

* Anything you say on the form - Prove. i.e. if you say you have $4000 in a bank show very recent bank statement showing $4000

* Less is more

* If you think a 5 year old could read it, then your done I like to make everything I send to see so obvious that a 5 year old could grasp it.

and finally Good Luck.

Airseir

OK.

First before I get a huge flame on this I would like to point out that the following is my personal opinion and I do not expect it to reflect the opinion of others.

From the following quote you could better achieve this ambition by travelling many countries not immigrating to one. Have you considered a work permit?

If it is just a more beautiful place and slower pace of life you seek then there are a lot of other places in UK such as the lake district, Scotland, wales, Lincolnshire, Yorkshire and you would certainly experience different cultures north of watford gap. Obviously I agree that this would not help with experiencing places abroad - but annual leave would be better in UK for travelling more frequently that you would get here.


Why Canada not anywhere else in the World? I feel that there must be a stronger feeling for you to have chosen Canada. Which Province did you have in mind or was it a blindfold and a pin in the map?

My wife and I sat down and separately and wrote down on a piece of paper (that was the hard part - not being able to use a computer or the internet to help) exactly what we wanted from life - if we lived in paradise what would paradise consist of. Admittedly she didnt get the hunky guy she still has me but hey. As we both only speak English we listed all the English speaking countries and USA and looked at cultures, cost of living, leisure activities, temperatures, population densities etc etc etc. Following each analysis stage we crossed some countries off. The strange thing is we missed Canada off from the start (still have no reason why). Then one day talking to my Brother and his wife they (he had lived in Ontario for 3 years and Married a Canadian and were currently living in the UK) they explained about Canada and why it was fantastic. We then seriously looked into aspects of Canada and discovered that Province to Province was completely different and City to City in each Province was completely different. Wow A huge world inside a country. - but hey Kamloops measured up to almost everything on the list and here we are.

panadol

If you need to include police reports in your applications, make sure you apply for them first thing, especially if you've lived in a hundred and one countries. They take their own sweet time to come in sometimes.

Rich_007

I agree with my learned friends above.

E-client is the spawn of Satan, deliverer of the long bad PR sleep, creator of sloth and boredom, mother of the endless night of the long knives, designer of nightmares and their endless questions, looping around the minds of the borderline insane.

Avoid e-client at all costs. Many a victim has been carried away in a straightjacket, their mournful moans rattling and echoing around the dusty Grosvenor Square basement where all pending PR files sit, gathering dust and insect larvae.



Rich.

OzRob

Oh, where is mhhp..lol!!? I am sure he would be discussed at you guys berating E-client....

acer rose

LOL

I would say keep a photocopy of everything you send. It is comforting to be able to leaf through the application as it would have been received by CHC to verify the details of any information you have provided. We had a long list of residential addresses in several countries on our application that took considerable effort to remember and get complete, so it would have been a pain to find it all again for the sake of saving money by not copying everything in the first place.

mhhp

Sir mhhp to the rescue,

Dont listen to any of the e/client fraction. Honestly, when noone is looking they are secretly loccking themselves in the Washroom checking eclient over and over again .

My most important piece of advise is as many others have stated "make it idiot proof" and that for every section. For exampe when you pay the fees write an exact breakdown or the amount (e.g x$ for me, x$ for spouse 0$ for daughter, because she is already a canadian citizen born in canada,...) Just because you have the obvious stated in another section, does not mean the officer checking the fees will remember that your daugter does not have to pay because she is canadian. This is just an example of what we learned the hard way, having said that we are still very lucky to have a dream short processing time, perhaps all that e/client checking did help just Make sure EVERYTHING is ABSOLUTELY Idiotproof.

Oh and dont hide anything, it will come back to haunt you.

Sorry guys I gotto go, I am flying back to Germany today for 3 weeks to wrap up our last things and celebrate Xmas with family. Coming back to Maple country on the 27th.

May the Maple God be with you.