bigthinker

Hello,

Both me and my wife have Australian PR and our first child was recently born in UK. I'm thinking of applying an australian visa for my child. I understand that I can apply for a permanent visa for him, however, when I went on Department website, it says parents need to obtain police clearance ?

Does anyone know, if this is essential? We got our police clearances at the time of our visa application .

Does anyone know, how much time it takes in UK to get the child visa application processed.

We are still in UK at present, planning to move sometime next year, when child visa is sorted

Thanks in advance for comments

Pollyana

Your police checks were done as current at that time, whenever that was - could be years ago. Time has passed since then and there may be new entries on those police records. DIAC will want updated police checks, especially as you are still in the UK - they need to know that things haven't changed.

zzidane

with our recent child visa we had to get police checks from both the UK and WA even though we were absent from WA for two years. From memory a police check is only good for a year any older and DIAC will ask for new ones.
Our application took approx four months, but every application is different.

bigthinker

Thanks ZZIDANE,

Can I ask, after how many months of lodging your child visa application, did DIAC asked you to provide police clearances and is this 4 months the usual processing time ?

Also, did you use any agent for the visa and would you like to recommend anyone ?

Thanks

zzidane

We used Ian Harrop as our agent, I cannot fault him very helpfull. Sent all completed paperwork etc to him at the end of Jan 2011 and recieved acknowledgement of the application from DIAC on the 9th of Feb.
They stated 49 days in which we had to get our lads medical and our UK and AFP police checks done. His visa was granted 13th June so 5 months in total. We were stated 8 - 9 months. I wouldn't hold my breath though, we were quite prepared to wait the 9 months, even longer. Best thing you can do is forget that you have applied and wait for the email. Hated the feeling of not knowing what was happening.

Good luck.

bigthinker

Thanks ZZIDANE

I'll speak to Ian to see what he says.