[CountyBoy]

I have a nice Blue Sticker in my passport and this has to be activated by September 08 and at the moment there is no sign of selling the house.

We want to sell the house befor going over and do not want to let it.

Can anyone tell me what the rules are regarding activating PR and if we dont come over before September is there any way to extend it or do we have re apply from the start:(

Regards
Andy

[Croft]

I have a nice Blue Sticker in my passport and this has to be activated by September 08 and at the moment there is no sign of selling the house.

We want to sell the house befor going over and do not want to let it.

Can anyone tell me what the rules are regarding activating PR and if we dont come over before September is there any way to extend it or do we have re apply from the start:(

Regards
Andy

Not sure if you can extend it - best ask your CO. However, a trip over (even if it's just a few minutes on NZ soil) will suffice to activate it. This may be rather expensive for a family though.

[Helsandfamily]

Hi
If you have PR you have 1 year from the time that it was put in your passports to Enter NZ. This activates it. (In your case Sept 08.) You also have a 2 year returning residency visa which means that once PR has been activated you can leave the country to return as you wish during those 2 years.

So if you haven't sold your house, just go for a holiday, someone on this forum went for 8 Hours just to activate it, and then rerturned.

After the 2 years, if you have satisfied their criteria, the main one of which is that you have spent 185 days (it may be 184 Can't remember exactly) in EACH of the two years leading up to that point then you get an indefinate returning residency visa, which means that you can come and go as you like.

Hope this made sense.

Good luck with the house sale.

Hels

[Mickstim]

We were in the same position and have to activate ours before 31 May 2008. We've had the house on the market for 9 months and at last are under offer, so hope all will turn out well, but our plan was either to go on holiday to activate or just leave the house empty. We phoned our CO and asked about an extension but they said there was no chance.

There is still quite a while for you to get the house sold - so hang in there!