As some may know already, the Australian Government through the Foreign Investment Review Board (or FIRB) places restrictions on the purchase of residential property in Australia by individuals who are not Australian citizens or permanent visa holders.

This can affect those who apply for a visa under subclass 804 – the Aged Parent visa category – where there is a waiting time of several years, applicants remain in Australia as the holder of a Bridging Visa pending a decision on their 804 visa application, and there is a wish to acquire a new home in Australia.

Such people should be aware of the restrictions that are policed by the Foreign Investment Review Board, or FIRB: approval from the FIRB is usually required when a temporary visa holder wishes to acquire residential property in Australia.

The same restrictions apply to the holder of a Bridging Visa that is granted to an individual following the submission of an onshore visa application.

An updated Guidance Note has been issued by the FIRB following the introduction of a fee schedule at the start of December 2015, whereby an application fee must now be paid when seeking approval for the purchase of a residential property in Australia.

The new fees payable to the FIRB when acquiring residential property in Australia are also discussed in the Guidance Note.

The Minister for Immigration in Australia has confirmed by way of Legislative Instrument 15/111 that the maximum total number of visas that can be granted for the year to 30th June 2016 under subclass 103 (Parent) and 804 (Aged Parent) will be 1,550.

This is the same number of visas as was permitted for the previous financial year.

We invite those interested in the number of available non Contributory Parent visas each year to also read our previous blog on the expected processing time for subclass 804 visa applications.

All who apply for a parent visa – whether contributory or non-contributory – must meet a balance of family test before the visa is granted.

The balance of family test requires the visa applicant to have:

• At least half of their children lawfully and permanently resident in Australia (including what are called “eligible New Zealand citizens” who are usually resident in Australia), OR
• More children permanently resident in Australia (including eligible New Zealand citizens who are usually resident in Australia) than in any other single county.

Department of Immigration policy indicates that it will count all natural, adopted and step-children of:

• The applicant
• The applicant’s current partner (including de facto partner)

If a parent visa application was lodged on or after the 1st of July, 2011 adult step children from a former relationship are not counted.

Children are not counted in the balance of family test if they:

• Are deceased
• Are removed from their parents’ legal custody by adoption or court order
• Are registered by the UNHCR as refugees and live in a camp operated by the UNHCR
• Live in a country where they suffer persecution or human rights abuse and cannot be reunited with their parents in another country.

Children who are outside Australia are considered to be residents of the country other than Australia where they usually live.

Children who are in Australia on a temporary basis are considered to be residents of the country where they previously lived before traveling to Australia. If the child has no legal right to return to that country, they are taken to reside in their country of citizenship.

Children whose whereabouts are unknown, or cannot be verified, are considered to be residents of their last known country of usual residence.

The Department of Immigration has a useful table on its website that sets out various permutations and considers whether the balance of family test has been satisfied.

At the time of writing this article the Department of Immigration’s website advises that ” … there can be long waiting times of up to 30 years before this visa is approved.”

We take issue with that statement, because so far as we are aware – and we have been looking after parent visa applications for many years – no subclass 804 visa application has ever taken 30 years to be processed to a decision.

While we acknowledge there are a limited number of visas available – 1,550 are available for the current program year under subclasses 103 and 804 – the Department of Immigration’s online queue calculator does not support such a long waiting time.

For example, an application for a subclass 804 visa with a queue date of 22 July 2015 has approximately 4,530 persons ahead of it in the queue. We do not see this as equating to a 30 year processing timeline.

More Details
At the present time the Department of Immigration’s Parents Visa Centre is processing to a decision subclass 804 visa applications with a queue date in November 2008.

The PVC is presently assessing applications lodged in November 2014 with a view to issuing a queue date.

Here are a few examples from our subclass 804 Aged Parent visa client list:

> Application lodged Sept 2013; medicals and police clearances requested Nov 2014; queue date Jan 2015

> Application lodged Dec 2013; medicals and police clearances requested Feb 2015; queue date July 2015

> Application lodged May 2014; medicals and police clearances requested May 2015; queue date June 2015

> Application lodged Sept 2014; medicals and police clearances requested June 2015; queue date July 2015

Remember that the time between the request for medicals and police clearances and the issuing of a queue date will depend on the time it takes the visa applicant to arrange the details requested. The quicker these are arranged the earlier will be the queue date, and hence the sooner the visa application will be assessed in due course.

The processing times for the older style Parent (including the subclass 804 Aged Parent) visa applications and the Contributory Parent visas vary significantly.

For example, at one end of the scale Contributory Aged Parent visa applications (subclass 864) are presently being processed to a decision in some 4 to 6 months.

By contrast current day applicants for the Parent and Aged Parent visas are looking at a processing time of some 10 years or more – the Department of Immigration quotes some 30 years on its auto response email (see below for details), but this is subject to a number of variables, including mortality rates, and political imperatives over the next couple of decades. For example, a future Minister might be more favourably inclined towards subclass 103 and 804 applicants who are in the queue.

To quote an old adage, you have to buy a ticket in the raffle to have a chance of winning a prize.

If you would like to see what applications are presently being processed at the Department of Immigration’s Parent Visa Centre you can:

• Send a blank email to the Parent Visa Centre (no subject line required) here
• Look at the Parent Visa Tracker website to see what is happening to other applications of a similar type