Bricklayer Skills Assessment - With Agent or Not!

[Sammy77]

Hi everyone,

Hope you all had a good christmas

Anyway back to reality.... We have been looking at the finance situation, and the only way we are going to afford the whole visa process (Using an agent) is through selling the house first which could take forever. One of the things we could do in the meantime is start the Vetassess skills assessment!!! As the title says, my OH is a bricklayer.

Has any other Bricklayers completed the assessment for Vetassess and any advice on the best way to do? and has anyone done this assessment without using an agent.

Sorry about all the waffle

Thanks in advance


Lisa x

[alaina]

hi
we are applying for the skills assessment at the moment - my husband is also a bricklayer - we do have an agent and have found their tips and guidance v usefull.

I do agree it is expensive but if it gives you the best chance of a positive outcome we think it is worth it.
It does involve lots of evidence gathering - references - tax and NI records - accounts - etc we think we should have all our info in the next week or so..

We have not heard from any one who has completed the skills test yet - if my husband gets to do the test we will let you know what it is like.

We are getting our house ready to put for sale in Spring next year - we have been told not to do this until we get the visa - but we have decided to sell regardless of the out come of our visa application.

We are hoping to go to Western Australia (hoping that there is plenty of work for skilled brick layers!!).

Good luck with your application
x

[Sammy77]

Hi Alaina

Thanks for your response, we have said the same, ideally, we would like to put the house on the market about June time, and we have said the same regardless of the outcome of the Visa, we want to move anyway, ideally we want a bigger house with a Garden, at the moment we only have a Yard, which was fine before we had the boys

Good luck with everything

Le x

[jarjar]

Hi there Lisa,
the skills assessment is such an easy form, you can do it yourself, not much involved in it. It is much more quicker to DIY as this may take the agent longer to prioritise over other work. I have a fantastic agent in Australia who told us to do it ourselves. Also the police checks, you should diy too.

[alaina]

hi
just read your message - i agree the form itself is straight forward - but weren't you asked for all the other supporting documents? we have a whole list - references, letteres from inland revenue, accountants, accounts and sworn declarations to be made at a solicitors office?

Prehaps we have to do all this because my husband is self employed? getting all this info from 3rd parties is taking some time...

what did you have to do? and what stage are you at? any advice at this stage is very helpful.

many thanks

[dixonclan]

Hi there i have just read all the notes and seem interested to know does anybody know where the best places to live in Australia is for the most work for a bricklayer. We have a visa that is allowing us to live anywhere but we like the look of Adelaide but i looked up a job site for Australia and most the worked seemed to be in Brisbane. If so can anybody let me know how quick it is to find work and rent a house as we will have to treat it as a holiday and book a hotel what with having 3 kids in tow.
Any information is greatly received. We also used an agent and it took about 6 months and they let us pay bit by bit which is handy when you are trying to live in this country and rubbish wages.
Thankyou Dixon Family