Applied for 143 Visa September 2017 at that time the waiting time was 18/24 months.
My eldest son emigrated to Perth, 21 years ago, now an Australian citizen. As a family we regularly visited him, as a consequence my younger son, some years later, went backpacking for 2 years and on his return to the Uk applied for a permanent visa. He is now also an Australian citizen living in Sydney. My daughter Laura, the middle child, decided to apply for a visa for herself, husband and three young children 5 years ago, but would only do so if we, her parents, would emigrate too. So at the same time we applied, through an agent, for the 143, expecting to follow them out up to 2 years later. Laura has now lived in Perth for 4 years and is now applying for citizenship. In the meantime, here we are, 5 years later, with no expectations of receiving our visa anytime soon, and our entire family living in Australia.
We have 7 grandchildren growing up in Perth without us, ranging from 20 months to 13 years, devastating not to be able to make memories with them growing up. My children are all hardworking, one running his own business employing others, giving to their community. The anguish, particularly for my daughter, of us not being able to join them is beyond measure, particularly as she wouldn’t have left the UK had she known we would be in this situation still. Covid of course had a terrible effect on everyone, with Laura actually wanting to sell up and come home until I talked her out of it.
We would be such a help to our family members who suffer much mental anguish at leaving us behind, it would enable Laura to work as we could help with childcare, and everyone would be so much happier being able to be there for each other.
My husband is 69 and I’m 66 so time is ticking by for us, but to have to spend Christmas, birthdays, etc on our own is heartbreaking, all we want is to be with our family and are prepared to pay the huge cost to be with them, and would not be reliant on state benefits at all. It seems so wrong that the waiting times can change so drastically after applying, surely they should honour the waiting times stated on the application.