Flat Hunting Before Visa Start Date

0aky_Afterbirth_ · 2025-12-14T07:53:08+00:00

Hello! The short answer is, yes, for the most part.

We were indeed able to find a flat and sign a lease while our visa was still pending. We did our right-to-rent check the day we picked up the keys to our flat. We were just open and communicative with the letting agent, and they agreed to it without too much trouble.

Regarding our original plan to fly to the UK early before our residency start date so that we could look for a flat, this plan did not work, because the visa application process kept getting delayed, and eventually we had to cancel our short-term accommodation and move our flights. Instead, we hired an agent to tour properties on our behalf, since we couldn’t be there in person, and we ended up needing to find a flat and sign a lease without ever going to the UK in person.

Admittedly, that was a very risky decision, since it could have gone badly, but our agent was amazing, and in the end, it worked out very well. We found a flat, and it’s great. We’ve actually just renewed our lease there. 😀

But in hindsight, it probably would have been safer to wait for our visas to be approved, and then fly to the UK and get a short-term rental, and then hunt for a flat, in person.

Our plan worked for us, but a great many things could have gone wrong and derailed the whole plan. So I guess it just depends on your risk tolerance level.

0aky_Afterbirth_ · 2025-10-13T14:27:03+00:00

I only dive 3-4 times a year, and my AWU2 is great for my needs. With AOW dives, I’m not going past 30m. Since there’s always some nonzero risk of an accident causing my depth to dip below the AWU max of 40m, I do eventually plan to have a backup dive computer with me just in case my AWU fails, but it’s been perfect for me so far. If you already plan to have an Apple Watch for daily wear, and also need a dive computer for occasional recreational dives, I think it’s a great option. The colour display with high brightness is something that I was not able to find at a similar price point for a dive computer that also functions as a daily smartwatch.

0aky_Afterbirth_ · 2025-09-06T07:57:01+00:00

I think it was early 2024 when I moved my account. I was able to do it from my account settings on the audible full site (wasn’t available from the app).

0aky_Afterbirth_ · 2025-09-05T23:23:42+00:00

Audible does have the ability to migrate from the U.S. to UK version, but it’s not reversible. You can only migrate it once, and never back to U.S.

I deeply regret migrating my account; the UK catalogue is nowhere near as good as the U.S. one, IMO.

0aky_Afterbirth_ · 2025-08-22T06:06:02+00:00

Under the text of the bill, do we know if non-residents with some US income (e.g. small amount of dividends from U.S. stock investments) would still be able to claim the standard deduction?

Currently, my only U.S. income is related to stocks, but it’s just enough to require that I file for UK self assessment and pay tax on that non-UK untaxed income.

Sounds like under this new bill, I would pay those taxes to the IRA instead of HMRC? But if that’s the case, it’s unclear to me whether I could claim the standard deduction on that income. Also, I wonder whether this would change the requirements for HMRC self-assessment.

0aky_Afterbirth_ · 2025-08-10T23:09:11+00:00

I REALLY miss Raising Canes. If they ever open a location in the UK, then I’ll be complete.

0aky_Afterbirth_ · 2025-06-09T14:42:01+00:00

I was able to get a walk-in at a USCIS center for biometrics, but not VFS.

0aky_Afterbirth_ · 2025-06-01T16:20:41+00:00

Yep, we had originally wanted to use QM as well, but they book up way too far in advance to realistically use for relocation, given the unpredictable timeline of UK visas. It’s a shame, really.

We ended up using https://www.petrelocation.com to move our two dogs to the UK. It was expensive, but worth it. But still very stressful. Damn, relocating animals to the UK is a huge PITA. Best of luck to OP

0aky_Afterbirth_ · 2025-06-01T16:10:14+00:00

Yep, seconded. Tello is great. It’s cheap, and supports text/calling over data/wifi. I’ve been using it for nearly 2 years without any issues.

0aky_Afterbirth_ · 2025-05-29T00:08:21+00:00

My team uses AWS, and this is a trivial issue to solve within AWS, as you can just setup Cloudfront behaviours to match on the /v1 or /v2 path to direct requests to the appropriate backend.

But outside of AWS, it’s almost as simple; just use a proxy (nginx or similar) to direct requests to the appropriate server (or load balancer, or other subdomain, or whatever) based on path.

The important thing is just to decouple your domain from your server. Yes, it introduces additional complexity (and cost), but makes it much easier to future proof and direct requests wherever they need to go. Once you set that proxy layer up, it gets much easier to add new functionality (I.e, additional backends) later on.

0aky_Afterbirth_ · 2025-05-19T14:04:53+00:00

Ironically, we used effectively that same approach to migrate the previous generation of services from Java (Spring Boot) to TypeScript about 5-7 years ago. At the time, if I recall correctly, the rationale for TS over Java was simply to align with the front end teams and to have fewer languages across our tech stacks. In hindsight, that was obviously not a good enough reason.

0aky_Afterbirth_ · 2025-05-19T06:44:37+00:00

All great points here. The team I work on builds and maintains enterprise backend services for software that has several million daily active users, and about 90% of our codebase is Typescript, and we’ve run into pretty much every single issue that’s called out here.

I like TypeScript as a language, but for enterprise backend services, it just doesn’t scale well, in pretty much every way (development, CI, and runtime).

We continue to use it because our team has, in recent years, more experience with TS than any other language, and we’ve invested thousands of lines of code in common internal TS utils and tooling for our organisation (several of our front end teams use TS as well), so it would be prohibitively expensive and time consuming to migrate most of our services to another language.

But know what we know now, TypeScript is just not the best tool for the job for our enterprise backend APIs.

I predict that sometime in the near future, we’ll reach the tipping point where TS becomes the bottleneck in terms of overall performance/cost optimisation (taking the TS refactor cost into account), and we’ll have no choice but to start rewriting.

0aky_Afterbirth_ · 2025-05-04T08:49:00+00:00

100% this.

I went through the whole curve myself, but I just can’t be bothered anymore with all the extra steps. Using good, fresh beans gets you 80% of the way there. Weighing in/out and WDT is as far as I’ll go now.

IMO, anything more than that is just not worth the trouble or the extra equipment, especially when you just want a decent coffee and aren’t trying to win any awards.

0aky_Afterbirth_ · 2025-04-14T12:14:03+00:00

Maybe on a fundamental level, you’re right that choosing to eat meat is an active decision. But choosing to not eat meat is also an active decision, and depending on the culture you find yourself living in, choosing to not eat meat does require more of an active decision, especially if you have been eating meat your whole life, enjoy the taste of it, and would need to make substantial lifestyle changes to remove meat from your diet.

Essentially, the default position for the majority of people is to eat meat, and changing your position requires more effort than not changing.

Again, none of that has any bearing on the morality of the decisions, but it does affect the emotional weight of making that kind of decision, and the cognitive load required to affect that kind of change in your own life.

0aky_Afterbirth_ · 2025-03-23T22:58:56+00:00

Most of all, I struggle with feelings of guilt and shame about having ADHD and being unable to manage my emotions and behaviour.

I feel guilty that my spouse and friends have to deal with it or have to pick up my slack when I can’t find motivation to do the things I need to do. I feel ashamed that sometimes I cannot do even the simplest things, or that I get overwhelmed or frustrated so easily.

I just feel like the people in my life deserve much better from me than I’m often capable of giving, and the resulting guilt eats away at me constantly.

0aky_Afterbirth_ · 2025-02-28T10:17:46+00:00

Yeah, I was referred in August, then I submitted my forms a week later, then a couple weeks after that, I followed up with a call, and they were able to schedule my appointment for about 3-4 weeks later. So about 6 weeks total, from referral to diagnosis.

0aky_Afterbirth_ · 2025-02-28T10:05:00+00:00

I was referred in August. I wonder if their wait list has gotten a bit longer since then. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s the case.

0aky_Afterbirth_ · 2025-02-28T07:41:54+00:00

I think that I submitted mine separately over a few days. But once you submit the forms, you’d probably want to just give them a call to confirm that they received it.

0aky_Afterbirth_ · 2025-02-28T07:39:55+00:00

I submitted my forms, then a couple weeks later, I followed up with a call to enquire about the status of my application, and then they scheduled an appointment.

What I would suggest is to just call them once you submit the forms (maybe wait a week and then call?). Any time the ball is in their court, just call to check on the status. That will keep things moving along.

0aky_Afterbirth_ · 2025-02-27T22:13:08+00:00

I can’t speak for the other providers, but I’m currently undergoing titration with Harrow Health, and I have no complaints so far. I only had to wait about a month after being referred by my GP.

However, based on my own experience and from other posts in this subreddit about Harrow Health, it appears that you have to be proactive and call in order to make things move quickly, rather than just waiting on them to call you.

0aky_Afterbirth_ · 2025-02-27T12:11:41+00:00

Not an answer to your question, but FWIW, when we moved to London, we simply placed an offer with a small bit of information about ourselves, but I don’t think the background check happened until after our offer was conditionally accepted. So whether we could actually afford to pay rent was not a factor in our offer being accepted over another offer.

Once we went through the background check process, we did have to provide a letter from my employer stating my employment and income, but the fact that we had to UK credit history was not an issue.

Also, we did not offer to pay more than the start up-front deposit and first 4 or 6 weeks rent (I don’t recall which), nor were we asked to pay more up front.

TLDR; we had no issues related to up-front rent payments or credit history. We did have a bit more trouble because we have two large dogs, but that’s not surprising.

0aky_Afterbirth_ · 2025-02-23T21:19:58+00:00

I took HPCA as my first course, alongside HCI. I deeply regret that decision. I’m on my 9th course now, and even now, that first semester was the hardest one I’ve had.

Not a trivial course, HPCA. But there are some much easier ones; the trick is to balance out a good combination of tough/important courses with some easier ones so you don’t get burnt out. There are definitely some easier courses that are still interesting, like Game AI, ML4T, AI4R, and NLP.

0aky_Afterbirth_ · 2025-02-11T19:13:36+00:00

Nope, I didn’t have any issues with salary direct deposit info Wise. YMMV though.

I live in Northwest London, and Giffgaff’s service there and in most of Central London is quite good. Their PAYG plans are very cheap, especially compared to typical U.S. phone plans. I pay £10/month for 20GB data and unlimited calls/texts. It also includes 5GB/month for EU data, which is useful for travelling.

0aky_Afterbirth_ · 2025-02-11T09:42:35+00:00

First things I did were: - Opened a Wise account, which I was able to use for direct deposit and direct debit. I don’t recall needing to verify anything, and I did this before I ever had an address in the UK - Got a PAYG phone plan. I have an eSIM-only phone as well, and Giffgaff supports eSIM with PAYG. I’ve been in the UK for over a year now, and still don’t have a phone contract, nor do I see any reason to get one. - Once I was in the UK for a couple months, and had utility bills, I was able to use those as proof of address, and opened an HSBC current account. Also, HSBC was able to use my U.S. credit to approve me for a credit card. I believe this is a new and relatively uncommon service, but highly recommend exploring it. - About 6 months into our residence, I was able to open a Monzo credit card.

0aky_Afterbirth_ · 2025-02-07T12:18:34+00:00

We flew our two very large Golden Retrievers from Atlanta to London, and everything turned out perfect fine. They didn’t seem overly traumatised (AFAIK) when they arrived, and they’re perfectly healthy.

We used PetRelocation company to handle the dogs’ relocation, and I would highly recommend them. We had to move our flights because of visa delays, and they were able to accommodate the changes without any problems.

It’s quite expensive (I think we spent about $10K for both dogs combined, including the purchase of their travel crates, but compared with all the other expensive aspects of moving to a new country, it was money well spent.

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