stubbyholder

To give us an idea of the timeline has anybody been granted Contributory Parent Visas lately? How long did the process take? We applied last June( with pc/medical checks) , no CO name yet. Should we
a) chill
b) hit the bottle
c) hit the agent??

Gill Palmer

When did the POPC bank your money? They usually do that before they do anything else.

I sent off my mother's application for a CP visa by airmail from the UK on Nov 19 2005. Like you, Mum had had the medical done in the UK on Nov 9, so I should think the Panel Doctor sent his stuff off at about the same time as I sent ours off for Mum. The POPC wrote to my sister in Oz (the authorised recipient) on Dec 7, saying they formally received the application on Nov 29. On Dec 28, my sister got another letter from them, asking for a specialist's report on Mum's health (since she is now 85.) That is being done on Mon 23rd Jan, so we expect to be able to get the specialist's report to the POPC well before their deadline of 10th February for getting it to them.

In your shoes, I would by-pass your agent and e-mail the POPC direct, to ask them whether they have received your application safely, when they received it and why you have heard nothing since. The POPC are incredibly efficient, as well as very helpful and pleasant to deal with, I have found.

I think their e-mail address is [email protected] - though I am not absolutely sure. If you go into the main DIMIA site and tell it to search for POPC Newsletter, their e-mail address is given in that.

What does your agent have to say about the supposedly stony silence from the POPC? It is totally unlike them to ignore people, to judge from my own family's recent dealings with them.

I smell a rat here called 'gross inefficiency'......

Gill

stubbyholder

Thanks for your reply-
Ist VAC banked 13th July
informed of case # 22nd July
Over the ensuing months we have prodded our agent for updates and to find out where our application was in terms of the waiting list. He inturn has e mailed POPC. Replies( from POPC) have been quoting average time for this visa 41weeks.We were informed that the application was "decision ready" on 18th Oct. On 2nd Dec one of the replies to our enquiries said that a case officer had been allocated - yipeee- our agent still trying to establish the CO's name!! So whilst there hasn't been total silence from POPC , we're living off scraps of information as a result of us chasing our agent, via an e mail, to find out what's happening.We're getting "twitched" , we front loaded our application, on our agents advise, to save time!!- but this is now starting to work against us as the clock is ticking away with no sign of the visa, indeed it could be as long as 41 weeks. He is confident that we'll get the visa and to be patient , which is easy for him to say.

Gill Palmer

Dear Stubbyholder

Look on the bright side. From your original post, I was fearing the worst!

CP visas are subject to "capping" - ie only 3,500 of them are available in the current visa year, which runs from 1/7/2005 till 30/6/2006. Reading old threads on this site, around this time last year, the POPC slowed down dramatically because the cap had almost been reached, and they knew that several applicants would not get their visas until after 1/7/2005.

Also, within the CP category, there is a pecking order for the priority given to different applicants for them. If you go into the main DIMIA website (www.immi.gov.au) and look for Factsheet 37 (Processing Times) you can glean quite a lot about where you might be in the pecking order. Widow(er)s get priority over couples, the elderly get priority over younger applicants and so forth. I think if you read F37, it might reassure you.

Beyond that, there is an excellent Migration Agent (which I'm not) called Welsh Tony, who was on-line a few minutes ago. I have sent him the link to your thread and I hope that he might be able to step in and help you & I with your query, so hang about on-line and wait to see whether Tony can tell us the likely reason for the slow-down, I suggest. (I am as interested in the answer as you are.)

It is all very well for your agent to be unconcerned! Medicals are usually only valid for 12 months. The POPC themselves advised me to front-load Mum's application by getting the medical done in advance, and I was so surprised when they said this (by e-mail) that I rang the guy back to make sure that I had understood him correctly. (At that stage, I knew nothing about British Expats, which I only discovered a couple of weeks ago.) He said, "Yes, yes. Go ahead and get the medical done." So I did.

What the DIMIA website is weak on, in my view, is explaining the exact process after the application has gone in, and weaker still on explaining exactly what has to happen after it has been granted. My only information about either aspect comes from reading old threads on BE, and I am not sure that I understand all of it fully.

I gather that once the visa is granted, you then have to go to Australia, if only for a week, within a certain time of the grant-date, and the date by which you have to go to Aus is linked to the date of the medical in some way. You don't have to move out there for good right away - it's not that bad - but you do have to physically go to Oz in order to 'validate' the visa, within the time-scale described - badly - in this paragraph.

Beyond that, it is quite complex and I will leave it to one of the expert contributors to describe the rest better than I could.

A chap called Grayling is also very helpful if you look for him in the Member List and send him a PM (private message.) He has obtained CP visas for himself and his wife, did the whole thing himself and describes everything very clearly if someone asks him a question.

I recommend that you stick around on-line for an hour or two, because I feel sure that somebody else will step in who can provide some definite information that can help you.

I'll keep an eye on this thread, and meanwhile, don't hit the bottle or the agent just yet, I suggest!

Cheers

Gill

Grayling

Just seen this thread.

Our visas took about 6 months from start to finish.

We emailed a few times and were always given a prompt reply.

Medicals and police checks are only valid for one year (or six months in some cases). You must validate within that time (ie. the date of the medical/police check) NOT from when the visa is issued.

Sounds like there is either a massive change in the system or someone is not passing on information.

Frontloading is not really necessary as the visas are processed pretty quickly although I accept things may have changed.

Initially the annual quotas were not being met. Maybe that has also changed.

I would email the Perth centre if I were you.

G

Gill Palmer

Grayling

Thanks very much for helping with this (after I had taken your name in vain!)

Please can I ask a supplementary question?

Mum has to see a specialist in a couple of days' time (a geriatrician, to confirm that she has not gone off her trolley and doesn't need locking up in an old folks' home etc.) The Police checks haven't been done yet and haven't been requested yet either.

When you talk about the date by which the visa has to be validated, would the specialist's report move the "medical time" forward, do you think, or would the validation period start from the date of the Panel Doctor's report and/or the Police stuff which - presumably - will come later still?

I am becoming very confused about the validation end of this game, and I should think Stubbyholder probably will be as well when he finds out about it some more!

Many thanks

Gill

Gill Palmer

Dear Stubbyholder

Final idea for tonight, because I'm now tired and heading for bed.

I don't know how much research of your own you have done. Are you aware of a gadget called the Queue Position Calculator? The DIMIA website gives a link to this tool.

In theory, the POPC allocate a Queue Date - which is an artificial date, I suspect, based on priority within the pecking order and suchlike and possibly people are added to it in batches rather than individually day by day. In theory, the POPC notify you or your agent of your Queue Date. The agent theoretically tells you what your Queue Date is and you can then check the QPC to find out how many applicants are ahead of you in the Queue. As the numbers come down, so your own position moves upwards.

In practice, ignore the nonsense about entering a secure site etc, and try it with fake dates till you start getting some answers. (Useful to have a calendar handy, though, since the POPC staff go home at weekends!)

A few weeks ago, I told the queue contraption 27th October 2005 and struck lucky. Back then, about 6-8 weeks ago, it said there were 300 people ahead of my hypothetical applicant who had been given this hypothetical date. I have just tried it with that date again and it is now saying 140. So they are still shifting these visas, but they might be getting close to the cap for this year, I suspect.

I suggest that you get your agent warmly by the ears on the phone at 9am sharp on Monday and find out whether he has a Queue Date for you. If so, hit the QPC with that date and find out how many people are ahead of you.

Meanwhile, what has happened with your Assurer? Has your Sponsor/Assurer been asked to arrange an interview with Centrelink yet? That has to happen, and the Bond lodged etc shortly before you get asked for the second VAC as I understand this. Is a child of yours in Australia your sponsor and assurer? If so, I suggest that your child chases Centrelink on Monday whilst you chase your Agent and/or the POPC. (Doing something pro-active and positive will make you feel better, if nothing else, I reckon. Scraps coming your way is for dogs, not for humans, in my book!)

By the way, if you are in the UK, consider signing up with Call 18866. Calls to Oz cost 4p for the dial-through and 2p per minute thereafter via them, which is a heck of a lot cheaper than phoning Oz via BT, my friend!

Please let me know what transpires. If you send me a PM, I promise to reply.

Finally, Welshtony sent me a PM earlier. He says he thinks you should e-mail the POPC direct. So does Grayling. WT and G both know FAR more about CP visas than I do, and I trust both of them absolutely.

Keep smiling. You can unlock the current impasse, for sure.

Gill

Grayling

Gill
That is a question I can not answer.
If the examining Doctor asked for the specialist report then he/she may be able to tell you at what stage the medicals are 'signed off'. They may well be dated from when the reports are available. If DIMIA asked for them then I assume the original medical date will be the one to take into account.

I really don't know and have never seen this crop up on here either.

I suggest asking the examining Doctor. If not then your CO.

Good luck

G

Grayling

Just to add.

Judging by our experience it would have been much easier if the parent's sponsor (who presumably lives in Australia) in named as the contact person. Then any correspondence will be by local Australian mail or phone. Most of our delays were simply because of postage times.

G

stubbyholder

Hi Gill thanks to you and Grayling for your posts.
I'm aware of the global queue calculator thing, but I'm unclear as to exactly how it works- when does your application get placed in the queue?Is it put in the queue irrespective of whether will be granted or not i.e.upon receipt at POPC, or when you're allocated a CO or when your application has been positively "assessed" , after the AoS interveiw and all fees paid? I assume rightly or wrongly the queue operates 'til thequota of 3500 is reached, and if you make the queue you 'll get your visas in the current migration year.As a result I'm not sure what the numbers in front of you mean.Any thoughts? I'll ring our agent (in Sydney) tomorrow night . Both our children (son and daughter) live in Syndey, our daughter is our assuror/sponsor, she's heard diddly squat from Centrelink,so as you suggest, a phone call will be made to them on Monday.I'll take WT, G and your advice and e mail POPC mid week before Australia Day, to try and find out what's happening -we'd be over the moon just to know the application's OK and we'll get our visas this migration year. Don't mind waiting.I know of the validation trip scenario, and are prepared for it should the need arise- it's only money! Having now read fact sheet 37, POPC probably consider us a low priority as we're both in our middle to late 50's, but we do have all our kids in Australia.
I can pass on some info to you re the phone calls - try Telestunt(on the web) you can call Australia for 2p per min. to a landline or 10p pm to a mobile -have used them for a few years now.No connection charge. You're given a bunch of numbers(you can enter them as a speed dial number on your phone to save time) which prefix the Oz number you call. Will let you know how things pan out, probably by PM.
S

JAJ

I don't know how much of an issue the "queue" is with Contributory Parent visas. Basically the number of applicants is a lot lower than for non-contributory visas, and the number of visas is a lot higher.



Again, I don't know how much of a difference this makes for contributory parent applications.

Are your children Australian citizens or just permanent residents?



Jeremy

stubbyholder

Jeremy
yes I take your point- both our children are Permanent Residents.
Tony

LisaB

Dear Gill,anyone.
Can you help me.We will be going to oz in march.My husbands empolyer will be applying for permanent residence visa as soon as we get out there.
As we understand we have to be permanent before we can sponser my mum and dad on a cpv.Is this correct?
Also my mum has a few health issues.She takes medication for blood pressure and diabetas.Also on her medical records is bladder cancer (although she is in good health)will a visa be denied because of this?What does the medical consist of?
We have recently taken a trip to Adelaide to try and find out all these things spent loads of time at immigration dept on Currie st and have come back with no positive answers.The only good thing I found that she would get private medical insurance for pre exsisting conditions(12 month wait).
I would be very grateful if you could help me.

Gill Palmer

Dear LisaB

In order to handle my Mum's application, I have really only paid attention to the elements that are absolutely crucial to her, so I'm not sure of the answers to all of your questions, but I'll try and others might help.

Sponsorship: I believe you would have to have Permanent Residence status for a minimum of two years before you could sponsor your parents. If there are any exceptions to this general rule, I don't know what they are, and I would guess it would be unlikely that any exceptions that there might be could be used in your case.

Health Insurance: Irrelevent for Contributory Parent visas. If you don't have it, it would not stop you from getting a CP visa. If you do have it, it will be ignored for the purposes of determining whether or not the applicant meets the health criteria. So it would not affect your parents chances one way or the other, but obviously, if you and they believe it would be desirable to have private health cover, that is a separate issue.

Medicals: From what I have read on BE, Panel Doctors seem to vary in how thorough they are. They are GPs. The form they have to fill in (Form 26, which you can download from the Australian High Commission website in London) is not particularly searching. The Medical Officer of the Commonwealth can, will and regularly does ask for further tests/examinations conducted by specialist doctors.

If you look on www.immi.org and click on Forms & Booklets, find Form 1071i, which contains a good description of the health criteria and how they are applied. I suggest as well doing an advanced search of this forum, using keywords like Diabetes, medical, cancer and so forth, to see whether you can glean anything from those.

Finally, have you studied Booklet 3 to make sure that your Parents would be able to satisfy the balance of Family test and meet all the other criteria, plus have you studied the costs of CP visas?

Hope this helps

Gill

stubbyholder

Hi Lisa B


Re Sponsorship query and what Gill said. We were told by a very reputable UK based migration agent, that as soon as our daughter gained PR status she could sponsor us, which she has. This is because the policy definition of "settled" is lawfully resident for 2years in Australia which she was ( her employer sponsored her) ,not a permanent resident for 2 years. She applied (successfully) for PR after being "settled" in Australia for 2yrs. This is slightly different in your case -as you're husband's employer is going for PR straight away,but you may find you have to satisfy the "settled" element even if you are PR's.With a bit of luck one of the migration agents/ moderators that regularly post on this site will see your post and give you more details, failing that, refer your query to a UK based agent
good luck
S