> Hi There,
>
> After all my moaning about region 4, migration agents, CO's, and just
> about everything else to do with migration, we got our permanant
> residency (skilled independant) visa today.
>
> At first, on looking at the email, i thought it was a request for
> further information (nightmare,) but then i realized it was our grant
> letter - what a relief! We just have to send our passports to the UK
> now to get the visas put in, and then we have to enter Oz by 11th
> November 2006, to validate our permanant residency. This is not a
> problem as we are holidaying there in June.
>
> For a timeline, our application was acknowledged around the 20th
> September 2005 (about four weeks after having sent it.) we then got
> the request for medicals and police checks in mid January 2006. We
> completed the medicals within a fortnight, to recieve another request
> from the LCU shortly thereafter saying our useless panel doctor had
> not completed Hep B and Hep C tests (a requirment because my partner
> is a health worker.) We got these completed, at great expense, and the
> LCU recieved the results on the 3rd March. We then got our grant
> letter today, being the 11th April 2006.
>
> So all in all it took around six months in total from start to finish,
> my partner (who is the primary applicant on our application,) is a
> nurse, so alledgedly we were supposed to being "fast tracked." I think
> if it had not been for the cock up with our meds, we may have got the
> grant letter in around five months. I am confident if we had pre-
> loaded our meds and police checks, we could have had the grant letter
> in around four months.
>
> With the benefit of heinsight, if i could have done it all again i
> would have applied earlier, so there was less pressure time wise. I
> would have also pre-loaded our meds and police checks. I think we
> would have recieved our grant letter around the time when we recieved
> our request for meds letter, if we had pre-loaded, saving us around
> two months.
>
> For those who have had meds, and are waiting for their grant letter,
> it may be of interest that we contacted our migration lawyer last week
> asking them to contact DIMIA to see what is going on with our
> application, in an attempt to "prompt" DIMIA into action. I also
> stated we were concerned that something may have gone wrong with our
> meds. I don't think it is a co-incidence that we recieved our grant
> letter today, after our migration agent got in touch with them. I
> suspect if we had not instructed our agent to get in touch with them,
> we would still be waiting (i don't know for a fact, but this is my
> "hunch.") I imagine they must have a pile of applications at the final
> stage, and by getting in touch with them it draws their attention to
> your application, and then hopefully it will get the "rubber stamp."
> Also the case officer who sent us the grant letter was a different
> case officer to the one who sent us the request for medicals letter,
> don't know how this may (or may not,) have affected the speed of our
> application.
>
> Anyway, thanks to everyone for all the advice and support, this forum
> is a great facility for all people going through what can be quite a
> frustrating, difficult process.
>
> See you on the Sunshine Coast!
>
> Cheers - Bob
Congrats and best of luck
Ali
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