Foreign Perspectives

We were sure that we had uploaded all of our documents back on April 14th, and in fact we had. What we hadn’t allowed for was that we’d scanned the passports as soon as they’d turned up years ago and in particular before we’d signed them. So June 9th, we got a request from the immigration people for ID documents with photos and signatures i.e. the signed passports. So the dreaded Further Consideration message appeared on the two citizenship applications.

We re-scanned the passports and uploaded them the same day for the two citizenship applications and my visa application and thought that had knocked us back somewhat. So, we were rather surprised to see the Approval of citizenship email from immigration yesterday. Only one of them thus far, but just under nine weeks from application is well before the mid-August date we’d been expecting.

It’s shaping up to be a busy month as Wendy’s British citizenship was approved at the start of June and she’s to go to her citizenship ceremony at the end of July. She’s not British until she goes to that as that’s the day they hand her the citizenship certificate which we can use to get her passport.

On other fronts, we’re working through our timeline with this edging into the period when we start sorting out the UK finances. Most people seem to get the urge to tidy up their UK finances by closing all/most of their UK bank accounts whilst we’re doing the opposite. For a start, chances are that you will still have some requirement for a UK bank account and you will have problems trying to open any after you leave. In principle, you could go with one but it’s always useful to have a backup. Our main ones will be HSBC and Nationwide which both let you retain your accounts after you’ve emigrated. In both cases, it’s useful to have both the current account and a savings account (not an ISA as you can’t pay into that after you leave). Lloyds and NatWest are also possible, but they may change you to their international account after you’ve left the UK. You’ll also want Wise which operates in Australia and can provide you with the Australian equivalent of a sort code and account number as well as the UK ones and let’s you transfer between pounds and Australian dollars fairly cheaply. Last, but not least, you’ll want a UK American Express card because having that at least six months before you leave will let you get an Australian one as soon as you turn up there and that’s the only Australian credit card you’re pretty much guaranteed to get at the start.

Next up should be the second son’s citizenship. We’d thought they would have turned up at the same time, but our eldest got his just before the immigration site shut down for its weekend maintenance so, all being well, the second son will get his during the coming week. I’m thinking that my visa might be approved during the week as we’d deliberately put all the applications in my account on the assumption that if the immigration person saw the others, they’d go ahead and approve them all.

I’ve started looking into the option of a Self Managed Super Fund (SMSF), the much more expensive Australian equivalent of a UK Self Invested Personal Pension (SIPP). And it is a lot more expensive: the £120/year that the SIPP costs will be more like A$4000 (£2000) a year for the SMSF. In fact, it’s so much more expensive and there are so many restrictions on transferring from the SIPP to the SMSF, that I’m going to need to do more complete calculations to see if it would be worth doing at all.

We’ve also continued to look at potential houses, though we definitely won’t be buying anything until I’ve got the visa and not until well into 2027 at the earliest anyway as there’s just too many things left to do on the timeline to move any earlier. Quite a nice range of houses fitting our criteria have come onto the market over the past few months. Surprisingly, some very strong candidates still haven’t sold after maybe four or five months.

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