We have been reading this forum for some time and have found most of the information we need, in particular thanks to Howard Snow for his generosity in sharing lots of accurate information.

We are applying for a 405 Visa and have our WA Sponsorship. We do however still have some queries on timing issues. We are not in a hurry and are more concerned about not too things too quickly and ending up making our investment months before we want to arrive in Aistralia. From various forums, we understand that the following applies:

When we receive confirmation from DIAC that our financial position and medical insurance are acceptable - we have 49 days to get medicals and police checks done.

When those are approved we have 49 days to make the investment (then 28 days to show that the investment was made from the funds shown on our application).

Our question is: when the visa is granted - is there a time limit for you to arrive in Australia? We can't see why there should be but would just like to be sure that we don't have any surprises at the last minute.

Hope someone knows the answer to this.

Many thanks
Viv & David

In case anyone needs to know - you have to lodge your visa application within 6 months of receiving the State Sponsorship

Hi Viv & David,

We are living in Queensland on a 405 visa, moved in September 07. Our understanding is that there is no time limit to making your move once the visa has been issued.

Best wishes, Roger and Heather

Hi Viv & David,
I certainly agree with your comments on Howards assistance.
We to are calculating when to apply for a 405. It is not that easy with property involved with the current unsettled state of the housing market. We live in SW France, and are affected by the fallout from the UK market, so for us it is also a question of timing. From what I understand, the visa is granted and there is no time limit as to when you enter Australia. Likewise there is no need to get the visa "stamped" in the passports. The only consideration is that the visa is costing you from the moment it is granted and that big chunk of fees divided by 48 months makes it expensive to sit on for too long.
(Are you sure on that 6 month time limit between WA approval and DIAC application ... I thought it was 3)
Perhaps you may know the answer to one of my queries. If you apply for regional location, i.e.$500,000, but then find that you cannot find suitable property in a regional area, and end up buying in the metropolitan area, can you just upgrade, as it were, to $750,000?
Whilst us 405ers are talking to each other perhaps we need to attempt a 405 register so that us and future applicants have a central knowledge base .... it does seem we are fairly unique .... some would say ... mad !!??!!

Hi
Once you make your investment and pay the second visa fee you get a letter from DIAC stating that your visa is approved. That is the start date of your visa. You then send your visa to the Australian HIgh Commision for the visa vignette to be put into your passport. The actual commencement of the visa is according to the date on the letter. For example we got our letter in mid March and the visa is valid from that date until mid March 2012 even though we wont arrive in Oz until 21st May. Hope that helps.
Colette

Thank you Roger and Heather

and thank you Colette - we have been reading your posts too and are glad that you are now on your way - good luck!

Cepe - the State /Territory Sponsorship Form 1249 has a validity date filled in by hand - which in our case is 6 months from the date of issue. We assume this is standard.

We don't know about the possibility of upgrading from regional to metropolitan once you have arrived but we found the WA Small Business Development Corporation (who process the applications)very helpful. Their email address is:

businessmigration@sbdc.com.au

Yes - the visa charge is insane - but you only have one life so you can't let it put you off, can you!

Viv & David

(Hopefully we have less typos this time! - I blame my new varifocal glasses!)

Firstly many thanks to Viv & David and to Cepe (PG!) for their kind comments about my assistance in 405 matters.

As usual, a disclaimer! I make comments on here as an amateur, just someone who was one of the first to go through the 405 process (I think our application was about the 8th that was received by DIAC), and someone who reads all the small print. Anything I write on here is factual in that I have experienced it myself or have been told it by DIAC. If I state something about which I am not sure I will clearly qualify the statement.

As far as the timescale for medicals is concerned, our letter asking us to get the medicals said "Please provide the above information by . If you are unable to undertake your medicals by the deadline for any reason, ". No - that is not a typo by me, There was in fact no date shown after the word "by"! So I can't confirm the 49 days. If you have not yet done the police checks, bear in mind that in the UK the standard time is 40 days, and that is exactly what ours took. We organised ours while we were waiting for WA sponsorship, and submitted them with our initial application to DIAC.

The only issue here is that both medical and police checks are only valid for 12 months, so you need to be reasonably comfortable that you will get your visa within that time if you decide to get them done early.

Once the visa has been issued there is no date by which you must enter Australia - and as Cepe says, you are wasting some of the Second Visa Application Charge if you delay your arrival!

You are correct about the WA State Sponsorship being valid for 6 months, so you can submit your aplication to DIAC anytime within that 6 months. Perhaps Cepe is getting confused with the 3 months that applies to your financial information. When you submit your statements of current assets to DIAC they must all relate to a common date which must be within three months of the date that DIAC receive the application.

Cepe - you must get your visa stamped in your passports before you can arrive in Australia. We sent our passports to the Australian office in London using the Royal Mail Silver Envelope system, and got them back within 48 hours.

Cepe - when you apply to WA for sponsorship you have to state whether or not you intend to live in a regional area, and to identify the Post Code of the town you want to live in.

When they send the Sponsorship form to you, item 10 says "Has the applicant indicated that they intend to live in a regional/low growth area of Australia (as determined by the SIR visa definition of a regional/low growth area)?" The boxes below show Yes or No.

Item 11 says "Please list the Australian post code of intended residence" - and in our case this says 6210, which is the Post Code for Mandurah.

When we visited the Small Business Office in Perth when doing our research before we decided to apply for the visa, I asked what would happen if we had put 6210 and then found when we got here that we wanted to live slightly further out from Madurah - say 6208 (South Yunderup)? The answer was that so long as it was still regional it was OK.

In my view (note - opinion only!) then if you decided you actually wanted to be in a non-regional area after you had submitted the application to DIAC, it would invalidate your sponsorship and you would have to start all over again.

Hope all this is useful!

Note there is a new procedure available for police clearance certificates in the UK these days - see:
http://www.acpo.police.uk/certificates.asp

Turnaround times are a matter of days, but the cost is more than the Subject Access Record (£35, as against £10).

Best regards.