The Outback Expat

My February Faves

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February was a short month and I didn’t take too many photos but it was a good month as always and flew by.

Below are my February fave photos:

Photos left to right starting in the top row:

1) and 6) Valentines Day flowers and the Aussie arranged for a beautiful bouquet of flowers to be delivered to me at work. The delivery lady sang his praises because they weren’t the standard roses and I totally agreed. In the evening we went out for a quiet dinner at Grill’d before a spot of shopping. It was very amusing to see all the extremely dressed up women in Kmart!

2) As I mentioned here, I was granted permanent residency on Valentines Day! Very timely as it was a De Facto Partner Visa! We went away to the Gold Coast to stay in Naomi’s families apartment for the weekend and they surprised me with this very delicious cake.

3) Whilst on the Gold Coast we went to see the excellent Black Panther movie. When we returned to our car there was this beautiful story of star crossed lovers in the form of Coles and Woolworths supermarket trolleys!

4) I enjoyed experimenting with our slow cooker more this month and created a pretty tasty home made Slow Cooker Vegetarian Chilli.

5) This is a screenshot of a reminder I set when we were off to the Gold Coast!. It amused me to see and the champagne was very much enjoyed.

Are we Nearly There Yet?

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It’s been a while since I did a visa update but I think we might finally be on the final straight for this visa business and it reminds me of when your a child on a journey and keep asking your parents “are we nearly there?”.

We have gathered the following “evidence” to be submitted:

1) Statutory declarations from friends and families with just a couple outstanding;
2) Copies of emails, text messages, Skype and phone chat logs;
3) Evidence of our travels together;
4) Evidence of employment;
5) Bank statements, receipts, tickets as evidence of joint finances;
6) Certified copies of my passport and driving licence;
7) Proof we live in the same address – which is hard to do as we don’t get post to the home address but our PO Box address but we have evidence the post goes to the same place;
8) Copies of cards, letters and emails to and from friends when we discuss my moving to and being in Australia with the Aussie

Now we just have to do the following:

1) Finish our statutory declarations and get them certified/witnessed;
2) Get the Aussie’s passport and driving licence certified;
3) Wait for the outcome of my UK police check;
4) Wait for the outcome of the Aussie’s police check for Australia;
5) Finish filling out my application form;
6) Fill out a form which asks for everything I have done for the last 30 odd years including where I have traveled outside Australia, education and worked (seriously!).

I have tried to think of everything possible to support the application and sometimes think we have gone over the top but then I think is it better to give them more than they need so they don’t end up needing more from us so the process is smoother?

I think we will then be done if we can just get these last few bits finished off this week. Then it will be a case of submitting the application, being granted the bridging visa (hopefully) and waiting.

I do still wonder whether we should have used a Migration Expert but with the cost of the visa being so high we really wanted to avoid that cost. I’m hoping we do have everything together finally. Has anyone else used a migration expert for this process? What was your experience?

One of my friends in Darwin said to me that I should just write in my statutory declaration that I live in a house in the middle of nowhere with an outside toilet and shower, why would I do that if we weren’t serious!! I think she has a good point 😉 Not sure that’s what immigration is looking for though.

Piles-of-paperwork-002

*** Please note that I am in no way giving visa or legal advice about applying for visa’s in Australia or anywhere else – this is just what I have found and is only relevant to our situation ***

Visa Update – Evidence

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We’re having a break from filling out the forms for the visa and this weekend I’ve been concentrating on gathering the evidence we need to demonstrate that we are in a genuine relationship and that we’ve been together more than 12 months.

So this weekend I have been looking through all of our photos to find the photos we have taken together. These are the photos from his visits to the UK, mine to Australia and then since I arrived last August which were quite a lot as I take heaps of photos!! I’ve found about 20 showing the various stages of our relationship and saved them all in to one document that can be uploaded/turned in to a PDF.

I’ve also been taking screenshots of our What’s app conversations, Skype calls (I just discovered that Skype only save them for 6 months so it’s best to keep these records if your planning on doing the same kind of application – although the Aussie has managed to find a way round this – no idea how but can ask if needed by anyone), phone call logs since I have been in Australia (it looks like the iPhone call logs aren’t that great either and I can’t go back before then without a 3rd party application or website).

I also wanted screenshots of a sample of text messages since we got together to show we weren’t just dating but were in a relationship. This proved difficult on the phone itself as the iPhone is very slow at displaying old texts and you have to do them in blocks of messages. I did some research and found some downloadable programs that find your backed up texts on your computer and displays them for you to save as a PDF if you want (at a charge). I didn’t want them all so took screenshots of the messages I wanted.

I might take screenshots of all references to Australia and the Aussie from Facebook maybe if they are easy to find.

I also thought it would be helpful to get my phone bills as I used to have to pay to send text messages to the Aussie so they are all on there but they only keep them online for 2 years so I’m going to have to get them to send the others to my family so they can send them to me.

I will also be trying to arrange to print all emails we have sent to each other and relating to our travelling together. I’ve flagged the ones I want up and its over 150 so that’s going to be fun to print! I think probably we just need a sample so I will go through them and select a few.

I’ve also read it might be helpful to show emails, texts etc where I refer to the Aussie and our living arrangements so I think I will probably screenshot/print those as well.

I’m not sure if I am going overboard or there is more we need to demonstrate our relationship but this is all I can think of at the moment so hopefully it will be ok.

All in all I feel like this when it comes to the computer!

woman asleep on computer (Small)
(Image from here)

*** Please note that I am in no way giving visa or legal advice about applying for visa’s in Australia or anywhere else – this is just what I have found and is only relevant to our situation ***

Visa Update

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Sooo this visa process is flipping complicated. I honestly don’t know how we would manage it on our own if I was not legally qualified and bearing in mind my experience is more along the lines of employment law I really know zilch about immigration law. I guess we would have to pay a Migration Agent or Lawyer which is totally understandable as we go through this process.

I have made the local immigration office my second home as I am always popping in to ask questions where I can’t find the answer from the Immigration Website or all of the super helpful forums for people going through the same process.

We are applying for the Onshore De Factor Partner Visa which is subclass 820 and 801 and means that I apply and the Aussie sponsors me to stay. When you submit the forms, which can be done online and the supporting evidence (or as much as you have to hand with confirmation of what else you will be sending) my understanding is that you get issued a bridging visa, we will see when the application gets submitted.

This bridging visa continues with the same conditions of the visa you are already on (I think) and so in August when my Working Holiday Visa (sub class 417 ends) I will go on to a bridging visa on the same conditions (including the working restriction).

So, so far I have managed to arrange my Australian Police check as you need a Police check for every country you have lived in for more than 12 months. This came back last week and apparently I am not of dodgy character, phew!

The Aussie will also have to apply for this, once we locate his passport, as he is sponsering me.

The process was really quick. I applied online by filling in the form, downloading, printing, signing and uploading it along with 100 points of ID (passport, medicare and bank card) and paid the $42 fee.

That was on a Sunday and on the Monday I had received an email confirming my certificate had been printed and by Friday it was sitting in the mail box for me.

Next up I have to sort out the forms and all the documents for my UK police checks. I also need to start printing all of the evidence to demonstrate our relationship as well as finish off writing our statutory declarations and filling in all of the forms.

*** Please note that I am in no way giving visa or legal advice about applying for visa’s in Australia or anywhere else – this is just what I have found and is only relevant to our situation ***

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