Never Advise Your Client to Make Life Changing Decisions Prior to the Grant of a Visa & Trust Your Instincts

The grant of any visa is never guaranteed.  Even if on the surface one can be very optimistic that a visa can be granted, one should never make a life changing decision before the visa is actually granted.  Recently the writer had an experience where the existence of condition 8503 (no further stay) was overlooked and the client and the migration agent acted as if the onshore visa would be granted.  Thinking the visa was certain to be granted the client declined a job offer back home.  When the existence of condition 8503 was discovered the job offer back home was no longer available.

Always best to wait for the visa grant before one alters one’s life.  In other words a visa applicant should not enter into an unconditional contract to sell a house, refuse a job or alter any investment decisions until the visa is actually granted. This approach is adopted in other areas of our lives.  For example if a person signs a contract to buy a house subject to finance then one does not inform the vendor that finance is approved until one has a written letter of approval from a bank.  Oral approval from the finance provider is never enough.

Then learn to trust your instincts.  If something seems wrong or unusual it probably signals a problem. For example recently a client received a written communication about a one year tourist visa where condition 8503 (no further stay) was not shown on the visa conditions.  Experienced migration agents know that one year tourist visas normally have condition 8503 attached. So what should be done is not rely on written communication, always check it with DIAC to determine the exact conditions. What happened in the example mentioned is that the agent proceeded to lodged a 457 application unaware of the condition 8503 which actually existed.  Much expense and angst would have been avoided if the agent had trusted his instincts and queried the absence of condition 8503 before embarking on applying for other visas