Applying for PR with partner - not staying together for 12 months :(

[drshah]

Hello dear forum members!

My wife and I are planning to apply for PR next month and we had a few doubts/questions. We hope someone here could answer our questions.

A little background:
I am a Doctor and my wife is a Dentist, we are both from India. We got married in July 2012 in India. In August 2012, my wife got a job in NZ and moved to NZ. I stayed back in India and came to NZ in April 2013 on a 'partnership work visa' and currently in NZ staying with my wife.
We have been married for a year now but haven't stayed together for more than 3-4 months. Before we got married, we were in a relationship for almost 5 years which can be proved by photos, email conversations, trips together, etc. but never 'stayed together' since we were both pursuing our careers in different cities/countries.
At the moment, we live together in NZ and have joint bank accounts, passports have spouse names on them, go on tours/trips together, etc.

I read that 'staying together' for at least 12 months seems to be pretty important in determining partnership status. Although we have been in a relationship for quite a while, we never had an opportunity to stay together until now!

My questions:
-So we plan to apply for a PR as my wife has over 140 points. If I apply with her as a spouse, what are my chances of getting a PR?
-If I don't get the PR, will I get the work visa instead? - i remember reading this somewhere
-Will i have to apply for a PR separately later? or will my PR application be deferred for later?
-If i don't get the PR, will my wife get one? Does my application with my wife affect her chances of getting a PR?

We really hope someone could help us with these questions.

Thank you!

[JandM]

Hello.

There are several things to show you here.

First, if your wife is applying under the Skilled Migrant Scheme, it is Residence she will be applying for, not PR. (After a minimum of two years on a Residence visa, it can be changed for PR if people qualify. http://www.immigration.govt.nz/migra...quirements.htm)

Next, your wife doesn't need 140 points for SMC since she is in work in NZ - it's a minimum of 100 with a skilled job offer.

Then, you have already had your relationship accepted as a partnership by INZ, since they granted your work visa. The live-in part is what is crucial. Following on from that, you need continuing evidence building up to 12 months in order to qualify for Residence for you as secondary applicant on her EOI. They will not be able to grant you Residence until you have 12 months' partnership proof altogether - that is, your present 3 - 4 months, plus another 8 - 9 months. It's very important to continue collecting proof that you are together. If you put in the application before you have 12 months' evidence, thinking that they will be processing it during the last of the 12 months necessary, still keep on collecting proof, because the CO will need to see it.

-If I don't get the PR, will I get the work visa instead? - i remember reading this somewhere

It's a possibility that is mentioned here can be offered to the applicant - to defer Residence for someone who is applying, sponsored by a partner who already has Residence or citizenship. http://www.immigration.govt.nz/opsmanual/30883.htm But that's more intended for someone who applies from outside NZ - you've already got your work visa.

This next bit is not anything I can find in INZ, but a memory of an old thread - I THINK it's possible for a CO to say to an applicant in your wife's situation that they will defer grant of Residence for both of the couple till there is 12 months' proof, OR ELSE if she wanted Residence straight away (for instance, if her work visa was nearing its end), she could choose to take you off the application and get her Residence without delay, leaving you to put in a separate application for Residence later.

-Will i have to apply for a PR separately later? or will my PR application be deferred for later?

Partly answered just above. If your wife applies for and gets her Residence before you have 12 months' evidence, then you would have to apply for partner-sponsored Residence later http://www.immigration.govt.nz/migra...ly/default.htm. Your Residence as secondary applicant under her SMC could not be deferred on its own.

-If i don't get the PR, will my wife get one?

If the processing of your wife's application under SMC comes to an end before you have 12 months' proof, as mentioned above, she will probably be given the choice of getting Residence alone, and removing you from the application in order to apply later, or deferring the Residence until you have 12 months' proof and you can both be granted it.

Does my application with my wife affect her chances of getting a PR?

No. In fact, it would be regarded as strange and suspect if she applied for Residence and DIDN'T include you. Getting the timings right is merely a slight extra complication, that's all.

About the timings. All this would be MUCH easier if your wife could wait to put in her SMC application for residence until you will have 12 months' partnership proof, by the end of the likely processing time at least. Then her Residence and yours could both be granted without difficulty at the same time. I realize there may be a time pressure if her work visa would be due to run out. If that were the case, it might be easier to renew the work visa so as to be able to put in the Residence application for you both with the required full amount of partnership proof.

[drshah]

Can't thank you enough!!

[drshah]

Thank you for your previous reply JandM.

Progress so far:
Me and my wife had NZ work visas expiring in Sept 2013. We applied for an extension in August 2013 and got a work visas expiring on sept 2014.

Soon after, we applied for a Residence visa with my wife being the principle applicant. We couldn't wait, as a Res. Visa would open up a whole new world of job opportunities for my wife.

But once our EOI was selected I withdrew my name from the application. We received an email from the Case Officer asking if we are sure and I informed her that "we realised that we don't meet the 1 year staying together marriage requirements yet (even though we have been married for over a year) and that i recently got my partnership based work visa extended. So will apply for a partnership based residence visa as soon as we meet the 1 year criteria" (furthermore, I didn't have police certificates from 3 other countries yet). She seemed to be fine with it.
My wife got her Residence Visa in about 3 months without any problems. (yay!)
We meet the requirements in April and I have been gathering loads of information regarding our stay together. So i will go ahead and apply for the Residence visa in April.

My Questions:
1. We have been staying together continuously for almost a year now. But i went to my home country for 2 weeks for some work. Do those 2 weeks count as "not staying together". Do i have to wait 2 extra weeks to compensate? (lol)
2. We have got a couple of partnership based NZ work visas in the past and have successfully proved our relationship each time. Now i know that residence visas are a whole new ball game, but any idea about how long it takes to get a Partnership based residence visa approved if all the documents are in place and if no hurdles come our way. (approx)
This Post suggests it could take less than 2 months - :O I am sure the time period may vary with each application, but is that usually how soon one can get a Partnership based Residence Visa approved?
3. Does this process include Interviews??? :O :O :O

Being a junior doctor in NZ, having a Residence visa could be the difference between "working" versus "sitting at home doing nothing"!!

Thank you for your time

[JandM]

1. I don't think your two-week trip is any problem. You are proving you're a couple who share a home, not that you never take an individual trip!

2. I'm sure you've seen posts from me saying this before - it takes as long as it takes. The INZ office you have to submit to will have a processing times page you can find by Googling, which will give you a guess based on recent averages, but it's never a promise. Of course, you KNOW they know you, and that you have a partnership they have accepted as genuine, and this is a very good sign, but still...

3. INZ officials are entitled to conduct interviews with anyone on any subject if they feel it will improve their knowledge of the facts of the case. If anyone gets called for an interview about partnership it's because the officials are responsible for checking that the partnership is genuine, so in general, they will be making sure that the two people give roughly the same answers to things like how long they have known each other, how they met, etc., and they might ask about the other partner's background and family. These things are not difficult for genuine partners, but will catch out anyone who is faking a partnership just for one of them to get a visa.

Some of these interviews go into small matters like who does what domestic chores, how does it work, entertaining v. cooking, if you have people round for a meal, when in the day does the other one brush their teeth - again, real partners won't have any trouble, but fakers would be caught out.

HOWEVER, in your situation, with two partner-sponsored work visas behind you, I very much doubt you'll be called for interview. Basically, they've already shown that they accept your partnership exists, and all you're having to do now is bring the evidence right up to date to show that you're still there, still together.