How to plan and start getting ready for the move?

[bravizzel]

Hi guys, i'm currently waiting for a working visa to be approved before moving to HK with my family. I just wanted to get some tips on how others have gone about the move.

What i'm really struggling with at the moment is that I don't have a definitive date to plan towards. If we sell all our belongings/car etc within the next 4 weeks and the visa takes longer than 6 weeks to process, it'll be a struggle to live! However, obviously if I leave it too late, it'll take way too long to get to HK after the visa has been approved or we'll end up just having to throw things out or not getting much money for our cars etc.

So just wanted to get your thoughts. Should we just sell it all now and hope that the visa goes smoothly and gets approved within the 4-6 weeks? Or should we wait? or gradually downgrade?

There are also things such as renting out the house that we will need to do. Arg!

[jgl]

If it's you moving over for work, considering having your partner and kids stay back home to wrap things up whilst you come out first and sort out accommodation.

[chingleutsch]

If your children are school age, ensuring they have a school to go to when they get here moves directly to the head of the list if it's not already sorted.

[Claire ex-ax]

Also check your passports' expiry dates.

[cylon]

Don't sell anything until you have actually been approved for the visa :-)

[john chi]

Bravizzel, I feel your pain - we are going through this exact situation. I don't know if it will help but we've gone with a risky "all in" strategy based on...

1. School was number one. My absolute priority is making sure my kids start their school on day 1 with the rest of the kids. This in effect set our target move date to mid-August at the latest.
2. Next was a house (flat!) to live in. I am lucky in that my job has sorted out a place to live, even without that though, I don't get a sense that planning on a month in a serviced apartment while you find a permanent home is particularly risky. There are others here that could tell you about this more accurately than I though.
3. We are renting out our house while we are away. To hit the "sweet spot" in the rental market here we have to be out by the 31st of July.
4. Working backwards we should have applied for visas in May. My office didn't even given final approval on the move until mid-June so that was a non starter.

We were left with a choice of play it safe but miss some key dates, or take a punt on it all working out and hope for the best. We decided on the latter, have sold one car, rehomed pets, signed a lease to rent our house out and are moving out in 2 weeks. Still waiting for the visa though, so not sure if we're moving into the hotel down the road or beginning our adventure. Technically, moving 4 of us with as much luggage as we can carry into a hotel will be an adventure of sorts anyway ;-)

Your mileage may vary - it all comes down to priorities and risk. We could end up with all sorts of egg on our faces and beyond if the visas fail for some reason. Fortunately I work for a company where this is fairly common so we figured we were reasonably safe on that score. And anyway - once you've wired HKD $250k odd to the school you're kind of committed anyway!

Good luck!

[bravizzel]

Thanks everyone for your comments so far. We're lucky that our daughter is not yet school age so schooling is not a worry (from an immediate start perspective anyway - i understand though the international schools have long waiting lists)

I am tempted to go in with the all-in risk strategy but a small corner of my mind says don't be silly, wait until the visa gets approved. I could wait but i'm anxious to get over and start the role!

Finding a place in HK won't be too bad as we're getting put up for 2 months. Its more sorting out how we're going to dispose with all our household goods, sell our cars and rent out our property to maximise the money we will get. The later we leave it and the more urgently we need to sell, the less money we will get. But its such a risk if the visa runs into problems (it really shouldn't but you never know)

Thanks for your insight John Chi - seems like we are going through something very similar!

[Claire ex-ax]

You're not shipping anything over?

[Fiona in HKG]

Hi guys, i'm currently waiting for a working visa to be approved before moving to HK with my family. I just wanted to get some tips on how others have gone about the move.

What i'm really struggling with at the moment is that I don't have a definitive date to plan towards. If we sell all our belongings/car etc within the next 4 weeks and the visa takes longer than 6 weeks to process, it'll be a struggle to live! However, obviously if I leave it too late, it'll take way too long to get to HK after the visa has been approved or we'll end up just having to throw things out or not getting much money for our cars etc.

So just wanted to get your thoughts. Should we just sell it all now and hope that the visa goes smoothly and gets approved within the 4-6 weeks? Or should we wait? or gradually downgrade?

There are also things such as renting out the house that we will need to do. Arg!

When does your contract start? When did the application go in?

My suggestion would be to give HR this link and ask them to chase it up, Immigration have always been very gracious to me when I needed to rush things along a bit, for incoming employees in a position similar to yours. However it's best to wait until they have the case reference number and that should take only two weeks so they may already have it.

http://tel.directory.gov.hk/02690001...disclaimer=yes

[bravizzel]

You're not shipping anything over?

we will be, we've got freight covered as part of the relocation package but our plan is to bring only essentials such as clothing and some baby stuff

we won't be bringing any furniture or bulky items as the last thing we would want is to have excess junk that doesn't fit into wherever we end up renting in HK