[stevied20]

Hello to everyone,

Me, my wife and two children have decided to move from Rugby, UK to Wellington, NZ and have just started the process, this site has been fantastic for all our questions but their are so many that need answering and would like any help that is available.

I am a chef/Manager and my wife is a registered nurse/ward manager and we have just about had enough with the UK and the hectic pace.

Our sons are 6 and 16, and when we are planning to make the move (August 08) Harry (6) will have just finished junior school and Colm (16) will have finished sixth form and wants to go to University in New Zealand.

Obviously schooling in New zealand is a big issue particularly universities in the Wellington area and the costs involved.

We have scored 140 points in our EOI which we are about to submit and were wondering the average timescale between this point and any potential move to NZ.

I have loads more to ask but thought I would start off slowly,

Best wishes

Steve & Julie :roll

[Carey]

Welcome and hope you feel free to ask any question, big or small, ther'e always someone on here who can point you in the right direction.
Good luck with your plans,
Carey

[Mexican in NZ]

Welcome and hope you feel free to ask any question, big or small, ther'e always someone on here who can point you in the right direction.
Good luck with your plans,
Carey
I agree with Carey,
There is nothing wrong with asking even when it sometimes feels silly to ask something is important you do as it involves ur happiness in a new country for u and the family.
Wish you all the best and God bless you,
Adriana and Anton

[Lisa&Andy]

Hi there

this topic has been covered before on this forum and when I joined I too asked that very question :laugh The time scale does vary. If you 'search' this forum you will find a whole host of different answers. Submission of EOI to PR is obviously a lot quicker if you have job offers. The fact that you have 140 points should mean that you will automatically slected from the 'pool' with your EOI. We are still getting our quals assessed by the NZQA before submitting EOI. Some people are in NZ within a 6 months and others it takes a lot longer, it depends very much on job offers and how quickly you return paperwork and if it all goes smoothly with medicals police checks etc, most police checks take a fair bit of time as do NZQA for assessing qualifications.

Good Luck and I hope this helps :cheers

Lisa x

[StevieD]

Welcome StevieD and family - my namesake!! (bit younger than me though?? or maybe not if you have a son of 16 :laugh )

Good luck with the EOI etc. We are not too far off going now, just enjoying the mayhem of the last 6 weeks.

StevieD - the other one :nice1

[Smiler]

Welcome to the forum guys :cheers:cheers

There's masses of stuff on where to live in Wellington and schools. A search up the top of this page will give back enough results to keep you busy with bedtime reading. ;)

If you need specific answers to Welly questions ask, there's enough of us there or nearby. :D

[Cardiff Irons]

Welcome Steve & Julie. :cheers

What happened to StevieD1 - StevieD19? Don't hear much from them do you?

[Smiler]

What happened to StevieD1 - StevieD19? Don't hear much from them do you?

:laugh :laugh :laugh

[ezza]

Welcome from us too. We are also right at the beginning of the process so probably in the same boat as you.

Unfortunately (and oddly, to my mind) my OH's qual's did not get him any points even though he is a qualified senior IT network engineer (they are crying out for his quals over there but it gained no points!!). He is now going out alone in March purely to get as many job interviews done as he can in two weeks - Auckland, Welly and Chch (I like the sound of Welly the most) and if he gets a job offer he will then gain enough points to get selected. On the basis of this, we think we will lodge our EOI then get selected pretty quickly and be out there within 3 months. But I might be wrong.

I did 13 years in the army and have no quals as such so I've only got about 50 points to add to the bucket (none of which count - it's all based on him) although I aim to have work within 6 months of arrival.

Anyway, until March we will hear nothing about going over from the agents which is a frustratingly long time to not hear if there is any progress!

From what I have seen so far, all your questions will find an answer here and eveyone is v. helpful.

We too are totally fed up with the UK. No kids but hoping that a better lifestyle will help us - we just want to be able to have some space, a couple of dogs (and horses - for me)!!

All the best! ;)

[andreamatt]

Hello Steve and Julie, and ezza

Timescales between submitting EOI and ITA approval seem to vary so much. The key thing seems to be to have a job offer. Things are moving quickly for us and we hope to be in Welly in June / July (my husband's tied to his UK work contract or perhaps we'd be over sooner) but we still have our house to sell... I think the thing is to keep your eyes on the BIG PICTURE and persevere at it. Good luck with it all; plenty of info. here.

Best wishes, Andrea Matt William (8) and Martha (6)

[stevied20]

Wow, thank-you for all the replies, suddenly we don't feel so alone any more in this process.

Interesting peoples comments, especially about having job offers in place, I realise this would mean a better chance of acceptance but we do not have any job offers yet, but our professions are in the "skilled shortage area".

Am I right in thinking that if your quals are not listed then that is why they have to be checked out by the NZQS and this is quite time consuming?

My wifes diploma checks out and I am sure my C & G's certificates are on the list so does that mean they are automatically accepted?

We were going to submit our EOI this evening as it is on 140 points but we have NO job offers yet!!

Would you say it was mandatory to have a job offer in place or could we get their with NO job offers and find work when we get out their, (Obviously as long as we have enough money to get by in the short term?)

Oh! and lastly we have convinced ourselves that we are going without visiting Wellington (or NZ for that matter) as we are confident it is something we want to do, is this STUPID? What do you think

Sorry for all the questions but as I am sure you can appreciate this is not common knowledge in the family as we wanted to wait until we found out more, so we haven't sopke about our plans to anyone!!

Best wishes and looking forward to any help you guys can give.

Steve & Julie

[wiki]

Am I right in thinking that if your quals are not listed then that is why they have to be checked out by the NZQS and this is quite time consuming?

My wifes diploma checks out and I am sure my C & G's certificates are on the list so does that mean they are automatically accepted?

We were going to submit our EOI this evening as it is on 140 points but we have NO job offers yet!!

Steve & Julie

Don't worry about the questions - we've all asked variations on them at some point!

There is a new rule as of Dec 11 that any points gained for qualifications and work experience if you DON'T have a job offer don't count if you haven't had the NZQA. If you have a job offer you don't need the assessment - probably because they assume your employer is happy with those quals...

Here is the NZIS announcement: http://www.immigration.govt.nz/branch/londonbranchhome/News/NZQA+requirements.htm

and here is the main discussion thread on here: http://www.emigratenz.org/forum/showthread.php?t=9522&highlight=NZQA

Sorry to be the bearer of tidings of more expense and annoyance

[ezza]

Hello again Stevied.....When the agent checked my OH's quals out on the NZQA it took a couple of weeks.

In answer to you question about going out 'blind' I don't think it is stupid thing to do. I am going out blind - Col is going over for his job interviews in March and I decided to stay at home because I am trying to get a qualification here before I go and I decided a two week holiday would be using up precious time. We have both been to Oz and loved it enough to want to go back permanently - that was 6 years ago tho'. As just about everyone I have spoken to says NZ is even better than Oz, I am confident that I will love it - besides, I will be on holiday when we first get out there until I find work!! Just look on it as an adventure for all of you. Research, research and more research. I feel like I see a bit of the place everyday with the amount of internet searching I do, anyway. Other people have done it - what's to stop you??!

[tchelseat]

Oh! and lastly we have convinced ourselves that we are going without visiting Wellington (or NZ for that matter) as we are confident it is something we want to do, is this STUPID? What do you think

That's exactly what we did. We'd never set foot in New Zealand before moving here, and we had preselected Wellington as well. So far we love it!

[StevieD]

Yup, we not been either - must be mad or so we are told. But, you have to take on new experiences, and it is for the brave to take that leap without dipping the toe in to the water first - either that or we are completely mad!! :laugh

Good luck with your application.

[Trigirl]

Am I right in thinking that if your quals are not listed then that is why they have to be checked out by the NZQS and this is quite time consuming?

My wifes diploma checks out and I am sure my C & G's certificates are on the list so does that mean they are automatically accepted?

We were going to submit our EOI this evening as it is on 140 points but we have NO job offers yet!!

Steve & Julieyou'll only need NZQA assessment if you are claiming points for your work exp/quals being in an area of skills shortage.

140points means you should get selected straight away. no job offer means the overall process is likely to take a while though as anyone with a job offer will be prioritised ahead of you. still it isn't essential to have a job offer - plenty of people come out here without it - also plenty of people come out here without having visited before though obviously it does lead to a risk that it might be nothing like you imagined it to be and you might hate it.

[stevied20]

Thank you very much for your replies. We our planning to emigrate to NZ at the end of July 08, after our 17 year old son has completed his A-Levels. Can you advise us, are we applying too soon? Can you also confirm the EOI is the first step, and not the qualification verification?

Thanks very much again, it is great to have someone to talk about this to, as we feel that it is too early to tell family and friends.

[saabmania2]

Welcome StevieD and family - my namesake!! (bit younger than me though?? or maybe not if you have a son of 16 :laugh )

Good luck with the EOI etc. We are not too far off going now, just enjoying the mayhem of the last 6 weeks.

StevieD - the other one :nice1

Oh No can the group cope with 2 StevieD's :laugh :laugh

[Moorf]

That's exactly what we did. We'd never set foot in New Zealand before moving here, and we had preselected Wellington as well. So far we love it!

Ditto, except we pre-selected Christchurch - and after 2.5 yrs we still love it here. :nice1

[Moorf]

Thank you very much for your replies. We our planning to emigrate to NZ at the end of July 08, after our 17 year old son has completed his A-Levels. Can you advise us, are we applying too soon? Can you also confirm the EOI is the first step, and not the qualification verification?

Thanks very much again, it is great to have someone to talk about this to, as we feel that it is too early to tell family and friends.

Applying too soon? I believe your P.R, if received whilst in the UK, will be valid for some time before you have to activate it - can't remember if it's one or two years... someone will know.

And yes, the EOI is the first step - you wait until you've been selected in one of the 2 weekly draws and then, if selected, they'll send you the ITA (Invitation to Apply) and this is when you need to get together all your original documentation including quals, medicals, police reports etc.

[Ana&Steve]

. We our planning to emigrate to NZ at the end of July 08, after our 17 year old son has completed his A-Levels. Can you advise us, are we applying too soon? Can you also confirm the EOI is the first step, and not the qualification verification?I think you may be starting at a perfect time, if you are going for PR, as the process can take a while w/o a job offer. I'm pretty sure you need to do the NZQA first in order to submit the EOI, and a full assessment takes up to a few months. Some friends of ours went through the same process as you and it took 9 months from submitting the EOI to "Approved in Principle" I can't remember how long you have to move to NZ after that though.
BTW, Hi and welcome! :)
Ana

[Rachel]

We are in a very similar position, just starting out. We have done a quick points check and think we have 140 points. Did you then get yours fully assessed? What documents did you need? Any hints?

Best wishes Rachel and Rob

[The Hodges]

http://www.freesmileys.org/emo/signs046.gif (http://www.freesmileys.org)

First of all, welcome to the forum. It is a wealth of knowledge and information. You might get differing views, but only because what we know is from our own experiences. However, in response to your questions:

We have scored 140 points in our EOI which we are about to submit and were wondering the average timescale between this point and any potential move to NZ.

We submitted our EOI in July 2006 and we were Approved in Principle in Nov 2006. This was quick only because I had a job offer. If you don't have a job, it will take longer, probably 9 to 12 months or so.

We our planning to emigrate to NZ at the end of July 08, after our 17 year old son has completed his A-Levels. Can you advise us, are we applying too soon? Can you also confirm the EOI is the first step, and not the qualification verification?

As has been said before, it sounds like that you are applying around the right time, if you don't have a job offer.

And yes, the EOI is the first step. I assume that you are doing it online at http://www.immigration.govt.nz , which is also a good source of information, even if it does take you a while to get your head round it.

I am not sure what qualifications you are claiming for, but there is some information here (http://glossary.immigration.govt.nz/Recognisedpostgradqualification.htm) and then here (http://www.immigration.govt.nz/nzis/operations_manual/7960.htm).

For your information too, you have one year from being Approved in Principle to landing in NZ and being granted PR (well that's what they told us in November).

I hope that this helps and if you need anymore information, post it up and we'll try to answer it.

Good luck with everything and I hope that it all goes well for you.