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Immigration Daily News Partner Visa Application Charge (VAC) to increase by thousands of dollars from 1 January 2015.
Partner Visa Application Charge (VAC) to increase by thousands of dollars from 1 January 2015.
The department of immigration will charge 50 per cent more for partner visa application fees from next year, according to a recent media release by DIBP.
A check on the charges using DIBPs online visa charge calculator however shows that it has yet to be updated with the new few structure therefore potentially misleading applicants who are intending to lodge their applications next year.
The new charges will apply to several partner visa categories namely Partner visa subclasses (combined 309/100 and 820/801) and the prospective marriage visa (subclass 300).
DIBP has not stated why it has targeted Partner visas for such a massive price increase and simply notes that it is required “to fund whole-of-government policy priorities.” The fee increases are expect to raise revenues by $373.6 million over four years.
The price rise will come into force from January 1, 2015.
PARTNER VISA CHARGES (Source: SBS)
* Provisional and permanent partner visas - currently $3085 increased to $4627.50
* Prospective marriage visa - currently $3085 increased to $4627.50
* Temporary and permanent partner visas - currently $4575 increased $6865.50
There are suggestions that the increased costs in Visa Application Charges (VAC) are forcing partner visa applicants to attempt what can be a complicated application process without any professional assistance. This, according to Robyn Oyeniyi is leading to a greater number for partner visa refusals.
"I have heard it said many applications prepared by the couple without professional guidance/assistance are manifestly inadequate and lead to refusals. This alone is often why a later professionally prepared appeal is successful.” says Robyn Oyeniyi, a prominent human rights campaigner and author of the book, Love versus Goliath.
“Perhaps the increase in refusals is due to an increase in couples preparing their own applications and I suggest this may well be driven by the increase in Partner Visa Fees. Couples struggling to meet the budget …may well decide to do their application themselves to save the professional fees. Of course, this becomes self-defeating as then they are left with the additional costs of an appeal process.”
Immigration blog
Totally agree with the Article.
When this was announced over an SBS media release yesterday, entitled 'love costs', I posted the following comment: '...This is how it works - people apply, pay their money, wait 18 months, forget to include some important documents, get rejected, pay to have their case reviewed, wait another 18 months for the appeal, gets sent back for approval, wait another 6 months before the Department gets their act together and grants the visa: the Wait? 3+years, the Cost? visa charge + appeal cost + legal representation = over $10k; The potential damage? incalculable...The Department's moto? 'People, our business' - absolutely...' and I think that pretty much sums it up.
The standard responses to the whole article was a mix of agreement, shock and anger, with comments in between about following the website and doing it yourself.
The trend of te last 18 months from DIBP is that all the info one needs is on the website, which is increasingly requiring a degree to navigate it, make sense of it and check that it's correct (how would lay people know it was incorrect?).
So, if the Department has succeeded in encouraging people to believe that the checklists and instructions on the website are enough, then there will be a lot of grief out there when applications are rejected and a lot of work for agents, including having to back-track on information as people don't seem to keep a copy of what they send...
As Chris Levingston has pointed out earlier in the year, this will mean on-going work for the industry, though it's not exactly the way that I would like to work - to come in and fix a stuff- up that requires lots of work and negotiation with two parties that are over the whole thing and do take it out on the agent as their only means of venting (they WON'T make a complain about DIBP else their application will be rejected, or so they think...)
I'm not even going to go into the rationale of the price hike as it is clearly a money grab measure from those who will comply and have no recourse but to do so...
We are living in interesting and dangerous times...