[Lara Croft]

I'm hoping to get a job offer very soon....:clap and I need to work out the best way to get through the paperwork.

We are already invited to apply, and the application paperwork is pretty much ready to go (medicals & police checks all complete). I have asked NZIS about current processing times, and they quote 4 weeks - 3 months, depending on the complexity of the application (this includes the lead time waiting for a case officer to pick it up).

Now, if I had a job offer and wanted to start work before Christmas, if my application was processed super-quick, then I might just get PR in time. But it would be tight.

The company is on the accredited employers list, so do I have the option of applying for a work visa (lead time 5-10 days), and then applying for PR from NZ? Our medicals are only valid until January 1st, so I would have to submit the application pretty quickly! The Work Visa (if I'm right) would enable us to get into NZ and start work. I think I'm right in assuming that you have to hand in your passports with your PR application? And we would need them to actually get to NZ, of course!

But if we go on a work visa, will we have to pay import tax on all our belongings?

Can anyone suggest a way through this minefield? All advice welcome :)

Thanks,
Jane

[renew]

hi,
I believe that you can hand in certified copies of your passport rather than the originals. Once you get PR visa you get a few months to get them added to your real passport

[CJ22]

I'm in a similar situation, so would also appreciate more info on the process of getting work visas.

[M&J]

Hi

We were in the same situation. We applied for a 9 month visa so we didn't need medical etc but if you already have them done you can submit them for both applications. Before we left the UK we submitted our ITA as the processing times were quicker, we got certified copies of our passports for the application. Once we were approved in Principal our CO transfered our case to Hamilton to get the blue stickers.

As for shipping our belongings we were lucky as two days after our shipment arrived in Auckland we were approved in principal, this was enough to get out of paying any duty. If you are still on a Temp Visa you have to pay a bond and once PR is granted you get that money back.

Any other questions just let me know.

Cheers

Jo

[denisesykes]

It will of course mainly depend on the timing issue.If you have time to get PR then , from our experience it is more straightforward to get it in the UK.
We had to go down the Work Visa route cos my OH had to get to NZ as soon as poss .
We still had to go to the expense of medicals, police checks etc in the UK and are now having to repeat everything now we are applying for PR here in NZ.
Interestingly we all flew through our UK medicals but we are struggling to get through the NZ ones!
We have had to have extra blood tests, urine tests, Xrays etc, all at great expense and a slight abnormailty on my daughters Xray was not picked up in the UK at all! We have had to pay for 2 CT scans here, plus TB tests, thyroid tests and now an ultrasound.They do not think anything is wrong , they just have to pin it down.
If they had noticed the abnormailty in the UK we could have had all those tests done on the NHS and saved 1000's of $ but then it would of course delayed our visas!
Don't know what it says about the NHS though!
If I had to do it again , I would have made sure we got PR in the Uk , even if it caused a delay in starting work.
We got our work visas in 3 days from London .As far as PR is concerned, we got picked from the pool in August 2006, submitted our ITA in January 2007 and we are still waiting!
Good luck to you , whatever you decide
Regards

Denise