[RamblingPaddies]

Just wondering whether anyone has actually moved to New Zealand mid-process ?
we are currently at the ITA stage (eventually came through) and can't face another 10+months here ...

has anyone moved mid process, gotten a job offer and then completed their applications over there ?
how do INZ look upon that ?
once in NZ, and I know it makes a difference being there, but still - once in NZ how do employers look upon potential immigrants who are at that time, only there on holidays ...
what ways can you go i.e. land legally ? just as a tourist ?

[lockstock]

That's exactly what we are doing. We've put in our ITA in August but waiting here to be allocated a Case Officer with house sold and having resigned at the end of term was driving us mad. We decided to book containers and tickets and just go. We fly out in January on return tickets (booked for the end of their Term one in case I do land a job in the meantime) - because you can't book one-way without a PR visa.
I e-mailed NZIS and informed them of our new address for the application and told them we were going over for an extended holiday and asked them how to proceed from the other side. You just register over there and they transfer. We're hoping things get sorted before we go - if not, I'm in for three solid months of watching England play NZ at Cricket!

I think lots of people have gone this route successfully. We have a slight worry that we may find ourelves up the creek without a paddle but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it because technically we have enough points without a job offer.

[RamblingPaddies]

thanks for that lockstock ...

[M&J]

We came out the day after we lodged our ITA on a temp work visa as OH had a job offer. I rang London NZIS and asked if I should lodge it there or in NZ. Our CO said to lodge it in the UK as it would be processed quicker, she said it doesn't have to be transfered. We we approved in principal and then had the case transfered so we just had to goes to Hamilton to pay migrant levy and get the blue stickers.

My advice would be to lodge ITA in the UK as the processing times seem to be shorter.

[owens clan]

You don't have to buy return tickets , you just have to prove that you have the means to buy a ticket when your visitors visa runs out ( we had return tickets for sept 07, but had to extend my wifes visa by another 3 months due to not haveing our PR spoke to NZIS Hamilton and asked if we had to buy another ticket, and they informed us that a bank statement with proof of funds would be ok).

If we had known this before we flew out it would have saved us about £1,500

[owens clan]

Whe you get here you can get a works visa very easily ,
But would advise against transfering your ITA from london to NZ as when we did it ,it put us back about 2 months due to NZIS personel not giving us an email address to send them anything and asking for stuff they already had in London, (we maneged to get the mobile no and email address of the head of the case workers and she was excellent and was able to get things speeded back up and on track).

[lockstock]

Well, I've learned a lot here too! The main thing is that is can be done - one way or another!

[IanW99]

You don't have to buy return tickets , you just have to prove that you have the means to buy a ticket when your visitors visa runs out ( we had return tickets for sept 07, but had to extend my wifes visa by another 3 months due to not haveing our PR spoke to NZIS Hamilton and asked if we had to buy another ticket, and they informed us that a bank statement with proof of funds would be ok).

If we had known this before we flew out it would have saved us about £1,500

Are you sure about this fact? The air carrier should not be allowed to board you if your visa does not say 'outward passage waived' and you don't have a 'return' ticket?

Obviously if you are in NZ and you get the length of you visa changed then they wouldn't expect you to buy a new ticket - they would probably just have expected you to change the date on the one that you have?

Ian

[ruthyroo]

Are you sure about this fact? The air carrier should not be allowed to board you if your visa does not say 'outward passage waived' and you don't have a 'return' ticket?

Obviously if you are in NZ and you get the length of you visa changed then they wouldn't expect you to buy a new ticket - they would probably just have expected you to change the date on the one that you have?

Ian


When we arrived in NZ from the UK we had:
No WP / PR, so applied for / granted tourist visas on arrival
One way tickets from the UK and onward (electronic) tickets to Oz
No evidence of funds

No problem at immigration so long as we had onward tickets. And it saved us a total of GBP750 each that it would have cost to change our tickets to returns when we realised that we had run out of time to have our WP processed. And it was the airline that recommended that we do it this way!

Note that this was over 3 years ago - the airline / immigration regs may have changed since then.