Hello everyone,
We are in a bit of a pickle as regards to our moving to NZ!
Our situation is that myself and my wife are about to lodge our SMC visa, with a job offer (for myself, the main applicant) and the job starts in late October. We are aware that the SMC visa will not be granted in time for the end of October, so I need to get a 2 year working visa (essential skills with job offer) and my wife a partnership based work visa to cover us until SMC visa is granted.
I understand that the work visas can take up to 25 days to process with the London office and that they require posession of our passports until the visa is granted. We can't send off our paperwork until the 30th Sepetember due to my medical certs not having arrived yet. We fly on the 22nd Oct, so leaving it very tight and with no room for complications.
Now I have seen that many people have their work visas granted within 5 days, or so, of receival by the Immigration office - is this the norm? Also, is there a way of going down to the London office and gaining a 2 year work visa on the same day, or speeding up the process?
The last little niggle is that due to us applying for a 2 year work visa they require our medical certs. My wife's is all well and good. Mine is pretty good but for one slightly elevated result. My HbA1c is 44mmol/mol, which is 2mmol/mol over the range that INZ have. The Dr has ticked 'abnormal' but also stated next to the result that it is 'not significant'. This most likely means I will be referred to the MA for our SMC visa. Does this happen with the work visas also, because if it does then we are delayed even further. The knock on effect of this is that our passports won't be returned in time, we will have to cancel our flights, set back my job start date and we won't be able to enter NZ until they are returned to us.
I don't imagine they are as stringent in the health checks for work visas as they are with PR visas - is this the case?
I think that is our situation in a nut shell.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Rob and Germaine