[osmyth]

If you were to wait until your PR came through, how long would be a reasonable amount of time to plan the move before you flew out?
Thanks.

[Questor]

It depends on where you are headed to, and what you need to sort out over here - for example selling a house

I would reckon if you waited until PR came through then started looking at all the things you need to do, you'd need a good couple of months, but then we've done a lot of it already, for example getting shipping quotes etc - and we could be going about a week after getting PR :)

[osmyth]

Thanks Questor.
Would need to sell the house, but a couple of months seems reasonable. So from EOI to moving would you say around a year?

[Hannah]

Hi Owen
From EOI to PR could take anything from 2 to 10 months depending on your circumstances (and of course on any complications with your application that delay things). Once you are issued PR you have 6 months to pay migrant levy and then a further 12 months in which to take up residence, so a maximum of 18 months.
Issues such as selling your house of course can have all sorts of timescales. My advice would be to prepare as much as you can before you submit EOI (police checks, gathering paperwork as 'evidence' of each criteria you are claiming points for). I guess you wouldn't put your house up for sale until you know you have residency? If so, you know that you would have up to 18months to take up residency so it wouldn't have to be so much of a rush (unless of course you land yourself a job, in which case you will be under a stricter timescale). With a job offer your residency application will be fast tracked too making things more tight.
Ideal scenario is to get PR without job offer - you have more time to move over to NZ, at your leisure, and getting a job with PR permit already will make job hunting more easy (unless of course you get Work To Residence - WTR - where you will have 6 months to find a job....
Damn timescales eh!!!