Ten questions to ask before you hire a migration agent

These ten questions take fifteen minutes to ask and can save months of frustration. They are deliberately answerable — any competent agent answers all ten on the spot, and the answers you get tell you more than the qualifications on a website. Bring them to your first consultation, whether it's free or paid.

A registered agent operating properly won't hesitate on question one, will give you a candid (not just optimistic) answer to question three, and will have a written agreement ready for question six as a matter of course — it's a professional obligation, not a favour. Watch how they answer, not just what they say.

Score the answers against three things: candour, specificity, and speed. Vague reassurance is a warning. Specific answers — a named MARN, a past case count, a written fee breakdown, a named case officer on your file — are what a real practitioner can produce in seconds. If the agency can't answer simply and directly, assume the work will be just as muddled.

Cross-check the MARN on the OMARA register yourself. It takes a minute and turns question one from politeness into verification.

Question six asks for a written services agreement, but the quality of that document matters as much as its existence. A good agreement names the specific services, sets the fee as fixed or hourly with a cap, lists what is excluded, and states what happens on refusal. It names who will handle your file and how you'll be updated. It also sets out the complaints process — an agency confident in its own conduct is happy to write down how you can challenge them.

If the agreement is a single vague page, treat that as a signal about the whole engagement. The document is not admin; it is the specification of what you're buying, and a firm that can't specify is a firm that can't deliver to spec.

Take notes during the consultation and compare the answers against the written agreement when it arrives. The two should match; where they don't, ask in writing which is right. Then compare the answers across two or three agencies before choosing — the point of the ten questions is to make agencies comparable on the things that actually predict a good experience, rather than on marketing.

Finally, keep the answers. Screenshot the written quote, keep the email thread, and file the services agreement. If you ever need to use the complaints pathway, that record is the evidence a complaints body will ask for first.

Many agencies offer a short free initial consultation; others charge a modest fee. Neither is a red flag on its own. What matters is that you know which one you're walking into and that the fee is disclosed before the call. A free call that is actually a hard sales pitch is worse value than a paid call that gives you a straight assessment of your case.

If the consultation is paid, the ten questions are worth more because the answers are usually more specific — a paid practitioner has less reason to keep the conversation generic. Ask your questions in the same order every time, with one exception: keep question two ("have you handled cases like mine?") and question nine ("what do you need from me?") flexible, because a genuinely useful consult will naturally drift toward your actual situation.

Some of the most useful information arrives unasked. A practitioner who starts the call by asking about your actual circumstances is a good sign; one who starts by quoting a package price before hearing anything about your case is selling, not advising. Watch how they talk about refusal — an honest agent treats it as a real possibility and tells you what would change; a salesperson treats it as unthinkable.

The written follow-up is also telling. Does the quote arrive in the promised time, itemised as discussed? Or does it appear late, rounder, and less detailed than the conversation? The way a firm behaves before you pay is a preview of how it behaves after — and the questions above are deliberately arranged so that the answers you'd want to hear are also the answers a good firm gives without prompting.