sophie26

considering whether to brave it and do 175 visa on our own or if to use an agent.... whilst reading i have seen people posting about 175 online then some paper based. Those paper based seem to be waiting a while for things to progress, is it the rule its quicker if you do it online? any advice?

we haven't even done vetassess yet, waiting confirmation we can do it in july, so early days but just curious....

thanks!!

ittakesages

Hi
The way things are going at the moment, it would certainly appear to be quicker to apply online. Have you seen this? http://www.beupdate.co.uk/ It gives you details of people's time lines etc so is quite helpful.

However you decide to apply - good luck

sophie26

thank you, no i hadn't going to have a nosey now. much appreciated!!!
also - this could be the silly question - if we used an agent would they post automatically? is online only really if you do it yourself?

xx

Swins

We are going it alone and submitting online. I understand why other people use agents, but in our case things are stright forward and using the online system you can see what you need to answer and can save it and come back if you don't have the information to hand, what else you need to submit (in terms of documents) is also given to you in a list.

I believe only a few agents currently seem to get involved in online applications, they seem to use paper based as its easier to deal with and get all the information together before sending and their cases tend to be more complicated.

Our decision was based on how complex our situation is (not very) and by spending some time looking at the forms and deciding if I felt confident enough to try on my own, which I do.

Good luck whatever you decide.

sophie26

thank you, not sure if ours is complicated or not really? not married lived together for 2yrs, been together for 3 have a 1yr old son, no joint mortage but bills together. partner plumber so if passes vetassess got that and his qualifications. we are both 26 so age on our side so to speak.

benlast

Hmm... it might be that many agents like paper-based applications, but from discussions I've had with others about how their agents work, it seemed to me that online applications were generally preferred. Certainly my agent does online applications as the standard route.

But this is probably all down to which agents one hears discussed... and by whom

Cheers
Ben

Swins

I agree, It wasn't meant to be a definitive answer, just my views. Having not used an agent I have no personal experience. Most posts on here about agents seem to be from people with complicated situations and involves lots of letters, declarations, etc.

sophie26,

Doesn't sound to complicated, as long as you can prove defacto spouse, which I'm sure you can, and he gets his assessment should be straight forward - but I'm no expert!!!

sophie26

thanks for thoughts. much appreciated. :-)

Nix and Mike

I think 175 is the old 138?
We did our application on our own pre 1 Sep last year - and there was no on line applications availbale for a 138. Now you can do the 175 in line and it is easy.....

thehowarths

Hi - we used an agent for our 175 visa. Glad we did as the TRA stuff was really time consuming and complicated in our case (OH a carpenter joiner but had mixed work history of both employed and self employed etc etc) - we wouldn't have felt confident doing this on our own.

However, we didn't think to ask whether our agent would be submitting our application on-line or not. They have submitted it paper-based and it is taking a really long time.

I get the impression that paper-based applications have been put on the back burner by the processing centre and they are pushing through on-line ones much quicker. We had our visa app acknowledged mid-October and have heard nothing since. Our case officer has suggested we may hear something around the end of May or early June. The waiting is getting REALLY frustrating!!!

I would recommend that if you do it yourselves, do it on-line. If you use an agent, specify that they do it on-line too!!!

Good luck!