Gordon Hickley

I am using an agent to handle the pr application. I return the agents
requests immediately. But it seems an awful lot of time is spent
waiting for the agent to deal with each stage of the process, even
trivial steps. There are no delays with requests for payment. I can
see that overall using an agent will actually lengthen the process. I
am thinking a better approach would be to do-it-yourself but have an
agent there for referring any queries to and just pay for advice or
checking forms. Has anyone else does it this way?

Gordon Hickley

Bud,

I think you'll find many of those offering agency services do so as a
sideline ancillary to another business activity. Best advice - do it
yourself.


Good luck.

Gordon Hickley

Cheers Gordon

gedmatt

I've got a pal who is going for a PR application and used an agent to do his Competency Demonstration Report 'cos it was somewhat of a hassle, but did the rest of his application himself because:

"all an agent would do is give the once over, post it off and charge you £800".

Cynical, maybe, but that's what forums like this are for!

In my opinion, if you're prepared to put in time and effort scouring through the information on the web, then you don't need an agent.

Ged

earlswood

Gordon,

We are using George Lombard for my hubby's RPl skills assessment and fortunately we have not experienced any delays so far. If we have any queries we e-mail them at night and normally a response comes back before midnight if we are still up or is sitting in my inbox first thing in the morning. He has been really helpful so far!

Some agents are good, some are crap.

Regards

Earlswood

Amazulu

If your application is straightforward don't bother with an agent.
If it's complicated, use one (we did).

Elaine M

Gordon,

I haven't used an agent but my friend has.

I didn't feel I could afford it and have spent a lot of time checking
details out on various websites including this one.

My friend's application has run along similar timescales to mine
although they're in different subclasses (mine is a 139 Designated
sponsored, hers is Independent Skilled).We both had hitches along the
way of one sort or another.

I don't think I would still be here/sane if it hadn't been for advice
and support I've received from people on this site and particularly
the migration agents who post here including (but not only) Jeremy,
George and Alan.
My friend's agent was very good and kept her informed/suggested a way
to overcome the problem; all included in the original fees.

Both of us are now just waiting for grant letters.

I would say that if your application is straightforward AND you're
prepared and able to assimilate information from the DIMIA website and
others, you can probably do the whole process yourself.

If you hit complications or have a less than straightforward
application, I'd say go with an agent from the outset or at least for
the difficult steps of the process.

That's my advice, for what it's worth.

Elaine