Holt Durham Migration Services

Friendly, professional, very knowledgable, affordable, understands clients needs, held my hand when i cried and gets the job done. Will always recommend Maree and her team.

Continually messed us around with our Prospective Marriage visa application for my fiancée from China and caused us 100 times more stress than doing it ourselves. The lala-land manner in which nothing ever seems to require them to be pro-active or warn us that plans might need to be changed simply heaped all the stress onto us.Good points: The initial consultation before we engaged them was very useful. I think the advice was good to spend Chinese New Year together (the Australian Government values shared cultural experiences) and to get people who are Australian citizens or permanent residents to fill in Form 888 for us (even though the form's instructions say they don't have to be if the applicant is outside Australia). Also their fees were at the low end of expectations.Despite my repeatedly querying them, they stuck to a wildly inaccurate estimate of how long our visa would take to be issued. Finally we took the decision two weeks before the wedding that we had to postpone it, which is the most stressful thing I have ever had to deal with.They also delayed our lodgement by two months while we provided documents that they hadn't told us about at the beginning; refused to give us any information about how to certify documents in China; failed to tell us which documents Australian embassies and consulates would and would not certify; failed to inform me that I needed an Australian police check (introduced in November 2016) until the Department notified us of it; and failed to chase up the Department's tardiness in requesting a medical examination for my fiancée's son (my understanding: should have been requested within a few days of lodgement, actually took more than 7 months).Everything meaningful I had to look up myself on the internet, and indeed everything I read on internet forums turned out to be true. One wishes that this agency would give advice as good as the free internet forums.For the information of others lucky in love but unfortunate in bureaucracy going through this process: (1) The Department's guideline on its website is that it aims to make a decision on this visa (from China) within 12 months of lodgement. Allow additional time for your lawyer to stuff you around and delay your lodgement. (2) Certification of Chinese Government documents (e.g., passports, ID cards and certificates of birth, family ID, marriage, divorce, death) is done by the Chinese Public Notary Office (Gongzhengchu). (3) Australian Embassies and Consulates will certify a Notice of Intended Marriage, and Statutory Declarations for use within Australia (e.g., Form 888). They won't certify anything else.