Positioning And Pathways And Fees (Putting All One's Eggs In One Basket)
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
Check List Using The Regulations As A Template eg - Spouse Visa
Get Enough Sleep
Visa Application And Associated Costs
Preserving Records
Record Keeping And Management - How Long Do Documents Have To Be Kept?
Initial Requirements Regarding Accepting A Retainer
Failure Of Proper File Management Can Lead To Suspension As A Migration Agent
Interpreters
Confidentiality & Notifying The Client Of Complaint Procedure
Give Your Client A Copy Of Everything
Give Your Client The Bad News Immediately
Take Care While On Holidays
Clients & English
Check Special Requirements For Offshore Visas With The Embassy's Or Consulate's Website
Don't Accept Immigration's Assertion That Decisions Have Been Made Properly
Have No Fear Of Appeals
Never Advise Your Client To Make Life Changing Decisions Prior To The Grant Of A Visa & Trust Your Instincts
Before You Set The Fee With Your Client And Before You File A Visa Application
Oral Instructions
What Can Go Wrong If You Don't Record Your Mail Properly
Prepare Your Client For The Oath
Ideas For Chronologies For Client Files
Immigration Goes Into Hibernation On 30 June Each Year
Australia Closes Down Between Christmas & New Year
Have An Industrial Strength Office Set Up At The Office And At Home
What Is A Permanent Residence Visa?
Practice Together Or Practice In Groups
A Proper Email Account And Email Management
Undercharging And Undercutting On Fees
Positioning And Pathways And Fees (Putting All One's Eggs In One Basket)
Email & Fax Communication & Errors With Credit Cards Emerge As Troubling Issues
Preparing A Client For Merit Review Hearings Or Interviews With DIBP
Accountants And Migration Law
Passport
Berenguel - Sometimes Time Of Application Criteria Can Be Met At Time Of Decision
Bare Faced Liars & The Fraudsters
Everyone's Doing It
Bridging Visas
Visas Remain Current Until Midnight
Immigration Closes At 4pm
Looking After Secondary Visa Holders In A Visa Cancellation Process
Applying As A Secondary Visa Applicant Onshore When The Primary Visa Applicant Is Offshore
Being Illegal
Essential Prerequisites For A Ministerial Discretion Application
Last Lunge Applications
State And Territory Sponsorship
Addresses
Believing The Client
Follow Up
Make Peace With The Tax Office
No Obligation On Immigration To Chase Up Information Or Documents From Migration Agents Or Lawyers Representing A Client
Errors In Visa Applications
Spouse Visas - Unexplained Large Deposits of Money
Managing No. 8503 On Tourist Visas
Medical Consent
Statutory Declarations
Merit Review
Tax Deductibility of Migration Advice
LEGENDcom
Dates On Documents And Names On Documents
Breaking Up Is Hard To Do
Take A Statement
Case Management Software
Work Rights
Student
Check All Past Visa Applications
Revealing Convictions
Visa Holders Being On Their Best Behaviour
Email Communication With Immigration - Delete All Strings
No Without Prejudice Conversations With Immigration
Accounts Managements
What Is A Secondary Visa?
Identify Australian Citizens Who Support An Applicant
Communications
Schedule 1 Criteria
Second Thing To Do On Starting A File - Download The Relevant Part Of The Law
First Thing To Do When Starting Any File - Identify Any 'Rights Destroying' Deadlines
Lodging Paper Applications
Social Media & Smart Phones
References
Disputes About Parentage And Children
Helping People Pass The English Tests
Managing Emails
What Is The Pomodoro Technique?
Immigration Telephones Client
When Is A Visa Application Made In Australia
Apply For A Visa In Australia
No Visa Application Is An Island
The Hammock Principle
Migration practice is about positioning a client for the visa. Positioning is then about pathways. Probably the most important question for a client is which visa to apply for. The rest often is just lacing up.
Proper pathway planning costs money in terms of fees. For example the writer would charge up to $5,000 (or more) for proper pathway planning for a client who had no obvious pathway. First step for any planning is identifying the visa applicant’s level of English. Second step is identifying the applicant’s skill level or business expertise or assets.
The writer on occasion has had both migration agents and clients seeking complex pathway advice, often even for free! The writer’s constructive criticism of the migration advice industry is that fee discounting is rife and when fees are too low inevitably corners are cut and a lesser job is done for the client. It is important to tell clients that you get what you pay for.
Probably the best quote the writer has read on fees is from Red Adair, the very famous America oil well fire fighter. When you needed a fire on an oil well put out, he was expert to do it. He became world famous as an innovator in the highly specialized and extremely hazardous profession of extinguishing and capping blazing oil wells. He said:
If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur.
Clients can often get in the way of proper positioning. And clients need to be told that sometimes you get there faster by going slower.
Clients and their advisers often put all their visa eggs in one basket, rather than positioning oneself for more than one situation or outcome.
Example one – English
It was a primary criteria for the Employer Nomination Scheme visa that the visa holder have a level of English at least a level of 5 in the IELTS. A client from China in his forties had difficulty with English but would not do the work and study necessary to improve his English. His solution was to get a friend to sit the IELTS with predictable results; he was caught out and then had difficulty doing the IELTS again. The solution for this client was to hire a tutor for many hours per week plus disengage from his Chinese friends temporarily and immerse himself in an English language environment. Instead this client basically sabotaged his own case. The migration agent was soft on him, telling the client the migration agent understood how hard it was to learn English. The ENS allows an exemption to the English requirement ‘in exceptional circumstances’. Obviously the closer a person gets to 5 the easier it is to prove exceptional circumstances. This client denied himself the chance of proving exceptional circumstances by not working on his English and he was denied exceptional circumstances.
The solution was for the migration agent to place heavy pressure on the client to learn English. The migration agent let the client set the agenda whereas the migration agent should set the agenda for the client.
If English is a requirement for a visa, the client needs to be told that there can be no compromise – learn English, or stay at home or go home!
The new skilled points test will only award points for English for an IELTS 7 or 8. The bar has risen, English skills have become central to successful positioning for permanent residence. Students in particular need to plan to achieve a score of 8 before they finish their course.
A further point. Students who are still able to apply for the able to approaching the
Example 2 – finding a spouse
A student was on a pathway to permanent residence, had a positive skill assessment and was certain to be granted the permanent residence 880 visa in due course.
However she fell in love and thought love was forever and ended up marrying her true love. Instead of continuing with the skilled visa application she decided instead to apply for a spouse visa which of course is the two year temporary subclass 820 visa.
The inevitable happened, before she was granted the permanent residence subclass 801 visa the relationship broke up. She became largely stranded, precariously attempting to restore a pathway to permanent residence, a subclass 457 visa being the only viable option.
The lesson, never allow a person to give up a chance for permanent residence. If one spouse member has the chance to get permanent residence without relying on the spouse for that pathway, the independent pathway should always be chosen. Ideally do both, there is no prohibition on applying for more than one visa at the same time. In engineering we use double protection methods as a matter of course like having fire rated walls and a fire extinguisher on the same wall! Permanent residence is not something to be diced with, always take secure pathways in preference to pathways dependent on others.
Example 3
A family including adult children applied for permanent residence business visas with the adult offspring as secondary visa applicants. One of the adult children had completed studies which would have allowed her to apply for a skilled visa in her own right, but of course, at that time she had to apply within 6 months of completing the course.
Rather than do that, the migration agent advised the family just to leave the adult child within the business visa application as a secondary visa applicant and await the outcome of the business visa decision.
But the primary visa applicant did not end up meeting one of the technical requirements of the business visa and as a result the whole family was refused a visa.
This left the adult offspring scrambling for visas and the advice given in that case was using the rescue strategy of applying for working holiday visas, the adult daughter being from Korea. But all of that was catchup as she was now left trying to apply for an Employer Nomination visa when she could have had permanent residence in her own right years earlier. The reason is often economic, but what price is permanent residence.