Barbaran

Hello Allan and Roz,

Welcome to the thread and think of it not as butting in but joining in. We are a happy band waiting to join their children in Aus in other words all in the same situation plus we all started this process as you are doing and help each other with information as it happens to us.

You can email sandch (Steve) who manages the tracker with all our information and you can join us on www.gainwave.co.uk where you will find the tracker and lots of interesting snippets etc. You will see his contributions all the way through the thread.

You will see from the tracker what information you can give him at the moment but you will quickly add more.

Best Wishes for a quick reply from Perth!

Chris and Barbara

jmm100uk

Hi Steve, and everyone else with the same thoughts - I fully expected to have problems finding a rental as I too have a dog and no job - however, I was very lucky to find a lovely house/unit with a joy of a landlord who was happy to allow my large dog too and unusually seems to assume that he sleeps inside (many allow dogs but expect them to be outside). As for not having a job - this was not even mentioned. I had sold the UK house and was living in a rented cottage - so I got a reference from the agent who sold the house stating that the house was in good order when presented for sale and that I was financially responsible (his phrase, not mine!), I also had a refernece from the UK landlord supporting my suitability as a tenant. A friend who had looked after my dog often whilst I visited my Aussie family and other times i.e. a day , a week or a month, also wrote a reference saying that he was house trained, clean, well trained, not destructive/aggressive etc. - in other words the perfect dog! These all seemd to have the right effect - i.e. providing I could pay the rent I was a good risk. I also offered to pay 6 months rent at a time - that really helped!

In addition - I made contact with a local agent on the last visit before the one way trip and kept in touch with her, phoning about a month before my departure from UK to let her know when I was arriving. So when I arrived she was expecting me, and within 24 hours of arrival she had lined up a viewing of several properties. The one I chose was the first one viewed and she turned down 2 other applicants in my favour. The system here is slightly different as you have to fill in an application form, and 'apply' to rent the property. It is a 'lottery' as to who gets it - so rather like a job interview - I was recommended to provide as much positive information as possible; it worked!

Hope this helps!!!
Jean

allanandros

Chris and Rob, thanks for responding. We so wish we were where you are. I retire in 18 months and so we have tried to time this process around that event. Both our sons, their partners, our four grandkids, my wife's mother and her younger brother are in Oz. Most are Australian citizens. We are all that is left in the UK. Hope you get your red star soon. Cheers, Allan and Ros

sandch

Welcome Allan and Ros

It's a very informative thread this. I'll add you to the tracker, and all you need do is advise me when key events happen. It's a bit low tech at the moment, I keep planning to enable people to maintain their own details, but don't have the time to rebuild it at the moment. But it does the job for now.

Let me know where you're headed in Oz, which visa it is (eg 143) and whether you're using an agent (assume not).

The date tracker is here

Best of luck!

Cheers

Steve

allanandros

Chris and Barbara, thnaks for the information. How do we e-mail Steve? I will go to gainwave after work tonight but just wanted to see if we had got a reply - we got two! Cheers

jtct

Great to hear from someone else at the same stage as us. Our first payment was taken last week (credit card bill was a bit of a shock) but no confirmation from Perth yet. Waiting to hear from them any day now as the application was sent on 15th April.

Jane

Les Avalook

If that payment was a bit of a shock you better be laying down when you make the second payment.

sandch

Yeah. Stock up in advance with something to numb the pain.

johnschofield10

Very true

I have worked it out for the two of us at A$1.7 to the £1 it is £37,123.53

Which is jaw dropping compared to £31,555 @ A$2 to the £1

But the rate has been climbing, albeit ever so slightly, these last two days it is now @ A$1.75 to the £1 today.

John

Les Avalook

Doh We should of applied when they had an offer on.

At the current rate our second payment will be £40,194 and you can bet they will not be keeping the London rate at $1.70 after July.

When we started looking to do this we put £30,000 in a 3 year bond in the UK thinking interest on that would cover any rises, how wrong was that. If only we had changed the money into $s then, but then you do not know you can go until you get the red star.

Barbaran

Hi guys,

Sandch has sent you a message go to the name, click on that and then you can send a private message from the list with your details.

Good luck
Chris and Barbara

sandch

You can also email from the website - there's a contact link there which is
[email protected]
Cheers

Steve

Chris-Rob-PTK

Hi Folks, its magic Friday ,please may we have a RED STAR yippee

sandch

The mad drop in the dollar has abated somewhat, with the market suspecting that the Reserve Bank has been quietly buying dollars to prop it up. You can't beat the market though, so this would only really make the ride less bumpy.

The markets are talking of a "weak" Australian dollar and at 1.75ish that really shows how weak sterling is. The man at the Bank of England keeps talking sterling down presumably to show how important he is and to help exports at the risk of inflation. Australia also is headed for elections and an uncertain outcome - ring any bells?

Anyway - we should not look a gift horse in the mouth.

sandch

Let me be the first to congratulate you. Well done!

Best wishes

Steve