[deko1970]

I am a construction professional from the UK and along with most of the population I am very disillusioned with living in this place and for a while now my wife, myself and my 5 year old lad have been considering a move overseas.

We have looked at quite a few places and liked some and rejected some and we actually nearly moved to the Bahamas, but this fell through after the propective employer asked us to go out with no working visa to start work. Anyway one the places we have seriously looked is Australia and I had been sounding out propective employers and it all seemed quite positive.

On the back of this I got a call from a company last week with an office in Auckland to have an interview this week in the UK (tomorrow actually) this has all come about very quickly and I just wondered if I could ask a few questions.

We have lived in Birmingham all our lives and are used to the big city is Auckland going to offer the same sort of facilities?

My wife cannot drive will she find it difficult get around in Auckland?

If we come across it will be on my qualifications and on a work to residency visa, will my wife be able to work in the first 2 years?

The company concerned bring in overseas workers on a regular basis and seem to offer a generous relocation package, including flights for my family, $10,000 relocation and $5,000 set up payment. Are there any other items I should request?

In the interview is there any one question that I should ask, basically if you have relocated is there a question you wished you had asked?

My son is in his first year proper at school how do the schools compare to the UK?

What is the one great thing about New Zealand?

Thanks for taking the time to read this and sorry for waffling on a bit

Cheers

Derek

[holland]

Hi Derek,

Firstly Welcome!

Secondly I am not yet in New Zealand, but I am sure you will get lots of responses answering your questions..schooling wise, from what I have read NZ schools are good and a lot of parents prefer them to the UK schooling, I suppose it depends which school/area you live in...There are a lot of people on here who live in Auckland, so I am sure they will be along soon to answer all of your specific questions.

If you want to do specific searches, just go to the top of the page, click on the search box, and put in what you want..eg, 'schools in new zealand' etc etc

Sorry I can't be more help, let us know how the interview goes
J and G x

[peebles16]

Hey Derek

Welcome from us too - not there yet but as holland says you'll find most answers somewhere on this forum. I think relocation packages differ from employer to employer our package just covers flight costs for OH and accomodation for the family for a couple of weeks. In saying that the HR department have been fantastic looking at rentals for us, borrowing furniture, promise to pick up at airport, show us round Christchurch etc and that can't really be costed.

Can't help you with schools as not there yet but impression I get is that in the main they are very good. Ministry of Education has list of schools with links to there websites so once you have decided where to settle you can suss them out there initially.

Good Luck
Karen

[Silverwing86]

Hi Derek,

Welcome to the forum and congratulations on your Job Offer, well done :nice1, I'm sure many on here will be envious ;) !

Here's my attempt at answering some of your questions:

We have lived in Birmingham all our lives and are used to the big city is Auckland going to offer the same sort of facilities?

Unfortunately I've never been to Birmingham (came from The Netherlands rather than the UK), but I believe Auckland has pretty much to offer what most large cities do. What sort of facilities in particular are you curious about ?

My wife cannot drive will she find it difficult get around in Auckland?

Hmmmm, that could be troublesome. It all depends on where you would end up living and what kind of places your wife would want to go. Auckland CBD itself is not huge and I'm sure it's quite doable with Public Transport, but the greater Auckland area is extremely widespread. To give you an example, we live on the Hibiscus Coast (Whangaparaoa Peninsula) which is still considered to be Auckland, but the drive to CBD is about 45 minutes !

In other words, if you choose to live in the heart of the city, getting around there shouldn't be too much of a problem. If however, you choose to live in the suburbs and your wife would want to go into the CBD regularly, that might make it more difficult without being able to drive. Question is of course, would she really want to travel into the city that much ? We don't, we only go to the CBD if there is a specific reason for it, which doesn't happen very often.

In the beginning we used to go to Wairu Park quite often as we were looking for furniture and such for decorating our house and Wairu Park has a myriad of useful stores for this. Now we don't go there much at all, everything we need is closer by. We can shop on the Peninsula (The Plaza in Whangaparaoa) for most things and choose to go to the Pak 'n Save in Albany for our grocery shopping once every three weeks (30 minute drive).

Have you had a chance to look at a map yet to get an idea of the lay of the land ? www.wises.co.nz (http://www.wises.co.nz) can be useful for this.

If we come across it will be on my qualifications and on a work to residency visa, will my wife be able to work in the first 2 years?

If you have a WTR visa, AFAIK your wife should automatically be eligible for a Work Permit. Other forumites who know more about this are sure to correct me if I'm wrong about this.

The company concerned bring in overseas workers on a regular basis and seem to offer a generous relocation package, including flights for my family, $10,000 relocation and $5,000 set up payment. Are there any other items I should request.

In the interview is there any one question that I should ask, basically if you have relocated is there a question you wished you had asked?

Sorry, can't really help you here as my partner and I came over with a Permanent Residency Visa in our passports and OH brought his job with him, so we have no experience with this.

My son is in his first year proper at school how do the schools compare to the UK?

No kids here so cannot speak from experience, but have heard and read good things about the schools here although, as is the case anywhere, not all schools are suitable to all children.

There should be a fair amount of information on this forum about schools though, as Jade (Holland) suggested, a search should bring up plenty of useful information. I would think Karens' suggestion of checking out the Ministry of Educations' website (http://www.minedu.govt.nz/) is also a great place to start, although you would indeed need to have a rough idea of where you will be settling.

What is the one great thing about New Zealand?

Hmmmm, where do I start :D ? The one great thing ? I guess for me it would be the people and their generally laid back attitude, I feel I can be more myself here. No one is particularly impressed by the clothes you wear, the car you drive, what kind of house you own or what line of work you're in, you are who you are and I find that very refreshing indeed ! Also I find people are generally more interested, I feel less 'invisible' here. Does that make any sense or help at all ;) ??

Thanks for taking the time to read this and sorry for waffling on a bit

What waffling ?? Didn't notice any waffling, you understandably have many questions and there are no 'silly' ones, any question is relevant and this is a great place to find some of the answers you're looking for !

Good luck with the decision making and please do let us know how your interview went ?

Cheers,
Silver

[Mickstim]

Hi Derek

We just want to welcome you to the forum and wish you lots of luck with your decisions!