Parent Visas, help needed

privateso

privateso

The Balance of Family test has dogged my own family for several years now, so I have every sympathy with your friend. The problem is that H&W are treated as one, therefore the children of each are treated as the children of both in this Test. The quality of the relationships involved is ignored altogether, because there is no way to test it objectively and fairly. This test is strictly applied and enforced, despite the fee of $27,000 per applicant, not per couple.

Depending on all the circumstances, there may be a long term solution, though it is probably a long-shot. If 50% of the combined children were to become permanently resident in Australia, the Parents would be able to migrate eventually. That, however, may not be a realistic idea.

If the couple are wealthy and are retired, there is a new type of Investor Retirement visa which would permit the Parents to become temporarily resident in Australia for a finite number of years. (Just tell the search tool in the DIMA website to look for Investor Retirement and the links to this new visa come up.) It looks very expensive and complex to me at a brief glance, and it does not confer permanent residence, but presumably there is a market for this type of visa, so if they can afford it, it might be worth further exploration.

If they are still young enough to be employable, and have a skill which would warrant hiring one or both of them in spite of their age, some of the clbuttes of send migrant visa are less strict about upper age limits than others, I believe, so again, this might be a possibiity albeit again another long-shot, perhaps.

Alternatively, if the Parents are retired and have a house in the UK which could be let out in order to defray costs, and have the time to spend out in Australia, it would be worth a look at the paper sub-clbutt 676 tourist-visa, which is applied for via Form 48R. The information about this visa (and the form) are on the website of the Australian High Commission in London. I think it is www.australia.org.uk but I am not 100% sure of the exact URL.

The paper 676 would normally allow only 6 unbroken months in Australia, but in "exceptional circumstances" it can be used to allow up to 12 unbroken months in Australia. I think it would be reasonable to apply for 12 months, and to send a covering letter with the application, explaining that were it not for the Balance of Family Test, the Parents would be applying for a CP visa instead. It is not their fault that this Test works against them, so I think they might find that DIMA would be sympathetic to their plight and might be willing to allow them to stay in Oz for a year at a time. Even if not, the cost is only £35 a head, and the worst DIMA could do would be to refuse 12 months but allow 6 months instead. In your friend's shoes, I would ask for longer, because you won't get longer if you don't ask for it and explain why you think it can be justified.

Obviously, these possibilities cannot provide a permanent solution unless either the Balance of Family Test can be overcome in future years or the Parents are eligible for send migration in their own right, but the alternatives can help to soften the effects of the Test. Sometimes, that is the best that can be done, unfortunately, and my mother is a veteran of being forced to accept the lesser alternative. It hasn't worked out too badly, in fact, because as long as she can spend at least half of each year with her only grandchildren (who are in Australia) it is better than not being able to be with them at all.

The Balance of Family Test has, in fact, recently been tweaked ever so slightly in relation to step-children, and the effect of the tweak is that a widow like Mum can now finally satisfy the test in some very limited circumstances. She is lucky, because it finally now works in her favour, but she is in a very small minority for whom this is possible. Unfortunately it does not work when the natural parent is still alive andor still married to the step-parent.

So I am afraid that whilst this is not very encouraging, at least the situation might not be quite as gloomy as it might seem, so I hope that this might be of some help.

Gill Palmer