Partner applying for residence while in NZ

[bobby55]

Hi there,

I'm a kiwi bloke living in the UK with an english girlfriend of four years. We plan on settling back home in NZ in the next 3-6 months or so. We are also expecting our first child in approx 7 months.

As I understand it UK residents get 6 months on a visitor visa to NZ.

My question is, would she be ok to go to NZ on a one-way ticket with the initial visitor visa while she applies for residence at the same time?

As background, she also has a brother in NZ who's been there for 10 years and is now a NZ resident and married to his kiwi wife.

Any advice on this would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

[JandM]

Hello and welcome.

You can't normally go into NZ on a visitor's visa without a return ticket. You can get certain return tickets where it's possible to cash in the return section later, if you're not going to use it.

It's usually perfectly all right to go in on a visitor's visa while you have another visa pending - the only cases I remember where people have been advised against attempting it were when the other visa application had stalled because the person's medical had been referred to the MA for serious problems, and was still being considered.

I presume she's applying for Residence as a partner under the Family Stream? Those go to the front of the queue and are normally dealt with pretty promptly - you might well find that she got her Residence in time to travel on that visa, if you've got a few months in hand before you need to go.

[sophiedb]

hi bobby,

Go straight for a partnership visa! Particularly if your gf is pregnant and you're planning to emigrate before the baby is born. Unless she has health problems or a criminal record, this should go through pretty speedily and will also entitle her to health care.

INZ aren't keen on temporary residents or visitors rocking up pregnant, however with a mini-Kiwi on board I would expect a better response in your case.

[lin]

Hi & welcome. Nothing new to add, just that I agree with Sophie, go straight for PR.

Best of luck

[bobby55]

OK, good advice there - thank you for your help guys.

One thing though, if we apply to get her a partnership visa from the outset while still here in the UK, if it's still 'in progress' by the time we want to head to NZ will we get grief if we turned up on a one-way ticket in that case?

I hear these visas can take time.

[sophiedb]

How quickly are you planning to move?

Some partnership visas are issued in 2-3 weeks. Mine took far longer, but that's due to a serious bit of medical history.

[bobby55]

Really. I was guessing it would be months and months of red tape. That's good news. We do have a few months up our sleeve so fingers crossed we might be sorted before we move if that's the case.

[JandM]

if we turned up on a one-way ticket

I don't think she'd be let on the plane on a one-way ticket on a visitor's visa. Airlines have to check, and if they mistakenly allow someone to fly whose papers are not in order, they are responsible for repatriating them, so they look VERY closely. As I said above, IF she was going to go in on a visitor's visa, you'd have to look into a different sort of return ticket.

[lin]

Really. I was guessing it would be months and months of red tape. That's good news. We do have a few months up our sleeve so fingers crossed we might be sorted before we move if that's the case.

make the Immigration NZ website your friend as your partner still has to go through the application process (forms, evidence of relationship, medical, police check etc) - http://www.immigration.govt.nz/migra...r/howdoiapply/

And good luck!

[bobby55]

Thanks very much for your comments. Yes, we'll have to start looking at the various evidences/checks we need from here in.