PR Personal or via Spouse

[BigBeans]

I am about to apply for PR and wanted to know if I should apply personally or through my spouse .... or both?

My details: Male, age 49, caucasian/western, work in finance, monthly income $25k+, lived in SG for the last 6 years+, married to a Singaporean Citizen, 1 adult child who lives permanently in US (from a previous relationship). Wife has income $7k monthly income.

I've seen some mixed and possibly conflicting advice about the best way to apply for PR.

Should I apply for PR personally - will my wife's citizen status be acknowledged and taken into account?

Or should I apply through family / spouse?

Or both? Some messages on here that doing both is not allowed but also plenty of messages that peoiple have submitted both personally and through family / spouse.

[sundaymorningstaple]

I think you will find that most who claimed have submitted both will be those who applied on their own, were rejected and later applied with the spouse as sponsor. You biggest negative is not the PTS or FT scheme, but your age. Also, your income level makes it dicey as you are in the bracket and industry that tends to like to parachute you guys into new/different territories/countries or offer another 40~50K/pa to make the jump to another location. As Singapore is still a patriarchal society, they tend to work on the premise that the female spouse will follow them. PR for those types is not considered ideal for the country's point of view. We've seen our fair share of those with salaries in the 250~400K/pa bracket in the financial district who have been rejected for what appears to be no logical reason other than they might consider them actually a flight risk (legally but still a loss to the country where the guy making $150/pa with a local wife AND local kids tends to bode well for stability in the country. But, at the end of the day, you buys yer ticket and takes yer chances. At your age, I think I'd still try it using FT and not PTS. (I did it that way 26 years ago as well - been married to an SGC for 37 years now - got two adult kids here with families of their own). I wish you luck.

[BigBeans]

Thanks for your response. Looks like I'm applying through Family Scheme then.

I've been told that Immigration companies (eg Paul Immigration) don't add much value and that there's likely no benefit to the cover letter they tout and to the advice they give to sign up to charities to get letters of thanks etc. True?

[MOCHS]

I've been told that Immigration companies (eg Paul Immigration) don't add much value

If you search through the forum, the answer by the veteran mods are don’t waste your time and money with such companies.

[sundaymorningstaple]

Cover letters go straight into the circular file. Cover letters usually try to take a grain of sand and make a shopping centre out of it. In fact, as all applications are online, you cannot submit a 'cover' letter. Paul Immigration is one of the worst. If you check their fine print (if the will let you see that close), you will note that they as well as all players in that field, Retain the right to not take you on as a client. even though they will lose 6 or 7 grand (not sure what they are charging at the moment). The reason for that is they will look at your info and will know if you are a 'shoe-in' candidate. If you aren't, they will refuse to take you on, because if you are not successful, that whacks their advertising from 95~98% acceptance rates downwards, it worth it to turn down a single 7K charge. But when their success rate percentage starts dropping then the shoe drops and the cats outta the bag. They cannot put anything on the application form that you don't personally give them. The application forms are designed to be able to be filled out by a N level holder so there is nothing they can do that an individual can't do. They don't have any inside tracks either although they will infer (only) that they know what is needed. They know as much as we do on this forum (and here we believe in paying it forward and give it to our readers for free. Hell, I was an HR & Finance Mgr for the last 15 years before I retired 2 years ago. Before that I was a Oil & Gas International Headhunter for 10 years (spent 20 years before that IN the O & G industry). Save the money and when Covid subsides, take a nice vacation. Charities have been done to death by those applicants from the subcontinent. ICA doesn't want to even see them as they now assume that as soon as they get their PR or SGC that is the last the charity will see them. I know, I have seen it all to often in my RC (I've been an RC member & office holder for 13 years. Now, if you are a regular & consistent Blood Donor, I would somehow find a way to note that.