[bobbyj]

Hi guys...I'm new to the site so a quick hello to everybody...hello.

Anyway...I am a "pom" who has been with his lovely kiwi girlfriend for about 2.5 years now and we are just starting the process of applying for permanent residency. Despite "going steady" for a long time, we have only recently moved in together. I went to NZ House last week and the extremely helpful guy advised me that we are able to apply for a perm residency visa with just 9 months co-habitation evidence (on the basis that by the time the whole thing is processed we should have been living together for the required 12 months). I had heard that applications were being processed really quick at the moment so I asked him what would happen if ours were processed before our 12 months was up. It turns out I can apply for some kind of working visa which (he said) was valid for 3 years without the usual restrictions associated with it (ie: only able to work for 1 company for 3 months at a time etc). My question is, has anybody else had experience of applying for a perm residency with 9 months evidence? And if so, how much of a nightmare was this? Evidence wise, I think we are OK...we have bags of photos, a joint tennancy agreement, bank statements, phone bills etc etc...we even have evidence of going on big holiday with both sets of parents at the same time!! Also...any further info on the work through residency visa would be superb (like can we get one if our perm residency is still in the system?)

We have spent the glorious bank holiday weekend booking up flights down to CHC via most of the world so one way or another...Bobbyj is going to NZ in 2008 (of course i'd prefer it was permanently rather than a holiday!).

Any help on this is greatly received.

Bobbyj

[jen]

My question is, has anybody else had experience of applying for a perm residency with 9 months evidence? And if so, how much of a nightmare was this?
Bobbyj

Hi Bobby - we had that same situation; we were fine with our medicals, phone interview and the job points but we only had evidence of our relationship going back 8 months. We could have either taken a work visa right away (neither of us is kiwi so we would have had the restrictions) OR our case worker gave us the option to have her hold open our application for the four months left in the year we needed to prove relationship. At that time we'd send in more evidence and get residency. She didn't guarantee if we went that second route, we'd get residency but strongly suggested we would, so that's what we did and it worked out as we got PR.

I suppose it depends on your case worker, but if your application gets processed before a year, maybe you could do the same thing - have them hold your application until the year and then get PR. A big factor for us was wanting to be covered under the NZ health system, which we wouldn't have been with the work visa we'd have gotten. Sounds like you're fine for evidence; we'd never had a joint bank account which was a big deal - we finally started one just for the application :roll

Good luck!

Jen

[urban78]

My question is, has anybody else had experience of applying for a perm residency with 9 months evidence? And if so, how much of a nightmare was this? Evidence wise, I think we are OK...we have bags of photos, a joint tennancy agreement, bank statements, phone bills etc etc...we even have evidence of going on big holiday with both sets of parents at the same time!!

Hiya Bobby,

I think you can apply for a work visa under partnership grounds if you haven't lived for 12 months together, if you can prove your relationship is stable...by the sounds of it you look really prepared :) Here's the info link from the immigration site:

http://www.immigration.govt.nz/migrant/stream/work/worktemporarily/requirements/Familystream.htm

In my opinion, I'd wait til you've reached the 12months before applying, getting residency straight away is so much better and can save you costs, although I have heard of some applicants getting "conditional residency", as in work visa and as soon as they have reached 12 months of living together they get residency although I think this might be special circumstances or Case Officer discretion.

All the best and good luck!

Jen :)

[Jo Jo]

Hi bobbyj, I agree with Jen. If you're not planning to go to NZ until 2008 then there's no reason to submit your application for another 3 months anyway, and I think it will be much smoother going there with PR from the outset rather than faffing around with a temp work visa when you don't have to.

My advice (having just submitted my own partnership application) is to get all your stuff together and then submit your application on the day you've been living together for 12 months.

Have you applied for your police checks yet? They can take almost 6 weeks to come through (mine took 5 and a half weeks).

Good luck!

[bobbyj]

Thanks for all your replies...

Because of certain factors (such as my parents doing a trip through NZ in early 2008), we are in a bit of a spot where we can only really send in the application with a maximum of 9 months proof as we have to leave by February 2008. If the guy at NZ house is right, we should be fine...but if not, there seems like there are so many other options open to us it will be OK in the end.

Excited!!

Cheers.

Rob.

[ellenmelon]

hiya,
from the sounds of it, i really think you'll be grand. you've been together nearly three years and have loads of evidence so id go ahead and do it. your situation sounds very similar to myself and my partners (my boyf. applied just before the 12 mth cohabitation had passed). his visa was completed in about 2.5 months.they have been really quick with processing over the last year.

good luck with whatever you decide to do! :D