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Gregg Brain raised £5,100.66 from 178 supporters
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Closed 12/09/2017
Iʼve raised £5,100 to pay for the Brain Family's Tier 2 Visa extension application and legals
- Dingwall, Highland, Scotland, United Kingdom
- Funded on Tuesday, 12th September 2017
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Story
I’m an Australian, brought up on values of self-reliance and pride. We can look after ourselves, and we don’t need help, thank you very much. I don’t often beg. But for my family’s sake, I’m begging now.
Before the end of this month, Kathryn, Lachlan and I are going to have to apply to extend the visa the Home Office finally granted us last year. It will cost thousands of pounds. If we cannot meet the Home Office’s fees and charges for this visa application, everything that we all did last year will have been for nothing. Kathryn’s employer is more than happy to extend their sponsorship for 4 more years. After this, we will be eligible to apply for Indefinite Leave to Remain and finally settle here.
We haven’t even begun to pay the legal fees from our twelve-month visa last year; the funds raised for us last year covered the increased visa application fees, Immigration Health Surcharges and other Home Office mandatory charges. We are a long way from being able to cover just those expenses involved in the application we need to make in a few weeks. As things currently stand, we don't have a prayer.
Kathryn has of course been working full time, though all of her pay has been going to paying rent, storage fees on our contents, fuel and car expenses to get her from Dingwall to Aviemore weekly and reducing the debts incurred while we were unable to work for most of 2016. During that year, we lost over £26,000 in income because of the Home Office prohibition, and incurred huge expenses to battle the Home Office and pay our visa applications.
I have been working on a contract basis, which has helped with our living expenses and keep the wolves from the door. Understandably, while employers are happy to have me work for them, many are now reluctant to place me permanently because of our current visa situation.
We’re desperately hopeful to meet an initial target of £12,000, just to pay the expenses involved in extending our visas. If we can do that, then we should have four years of stability so Kathryn can continue her work, I can get a permanent job, and achieve some measure of certainty for Lachlan and our family as a whole.
If we can reach that target, then the secondary target is £30,000, to help pay off the debts we incurred in our battle to remain here. That will at least enable us to start our new lives here from zero, having recently moved into a house and retrieved our belongings from storage, rather than from ‘behind the eight-ball’.
We were astounded by the support we received last year, and hoped that our troubles then would be the end of our story, and we would be able to manage once we had our visas. This last 12 months has been really tough on our family, with still not having any certainty or permanency. I hate doing this, but I have to ask again for your help.
Please, if you can help Kathryn, Lachlan and I, then we would be eternally grateful. Any amount, large or small, would be wonderful. If you know of any financial angels who could get us over the line, please point them our way.
Updates
25
- 7 years ago
Gregg Brain
7 years agoThank you all for your generosity and support. As we head to Glasgow on Friday to start the process of submitting our application, it is heartwarming to know we have the support of our 'family' here in Scotland, and further afield.
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- 7 years ago
Gregg Brain
7 years agoWell, there's less than an hour left, so before it closes, we'd just like to say a heartfelt thanks to everyone who donated, shared this page, provided wonderful words of support - many of you we don't know personally, nor through social media - and there were many anonymous donors who we'll never know donated and hopefully shared the page, or talked to others who in turn donated. We hope in the next few days we'll make our target to at least submit the application. Again, much gratitude to you all. *heart*
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- 7 years ago
Gregg Brain
7 years ago[Kathryn] Howdy folks, just 5 hrs 45 mins left to go...appointment with the solicitor now made - he has made time for us on Friday to head to Glasgow to submit our applications - panicking, just a little... Thank you to everyone who has contributed and sent wonderful messages of support - it means the world to us. Thank you *heart*.
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- 7 years ago
Gregg Brain
7 years ago[Kathryn] Thank you everyone, we've crossed the £5,000 mark. With 15 hours left, and £1,500 to go to meet just the minimum application fees and immigration health surcharge fees to submit our applications (hopefully next week) it would be great to see that finish close to £7,000 by the end of the day to allow for the Justgiving fees of 5% and the paypal fees 1.45% per transaction taken out to help us just meet those mandatory minimum charges to get our application in. The rest happens in the week or two after we submit. Thank you! *heart*
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Supporters
178
Dore Schluenkes
Sep 12, 2017
All the best to you and your family
£50.00
Anonymous
Sep 12, 2017
£20.00
Anonymous
Sep 11, 2017
Such a nice family. I hope all your future plans in Scotland come true. Wishing you all the very best for the future.
£30.00
Anonymous
Sep 11, 2017
Hope things get better. Changing the rules retrospectively was wrong in equity law, I would have thought.
Anonymous
Sep 11, 2017
£20.00
Anonymous
Sep 11, 2017
Hope you reach your target.
£50.00
Anonymous
Sep 10, 2017
£20.00
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