London branch is moving quick!
Long time listener, first time caller... I just want to say thanks, everyone. This forum has been a huge, huge help to my wife and me!
From my experience, the London branch's SMC application department is moving along quite quickly at the moment!
My experience/timeline:
My wife and I filed an EOI back in April with 145 points, and received an ITA in May's first batch. We waited to send in our application as 15 August, 2013 was the one year mark for us living together, and I wanted time to try to find a job. Our application was received by the London branch on 27 August, and our credit card was promptly charged the application fee on the 28th of August.
In the mean time in early July I started a rather long interview/negotiation process with an employer in Christchurch (to be fair, hiring from the other side of the world is hard!). On 19 September I received an Offer of Skilled Employment. I e-mailed a copy of the offer letter and employment contract to the London branch per their instructions, and received a reply on 20 December that an immigration officer would be assigned shortly.
On 24 September I was contacted via e-mail for the first time by our officer, and from the sound of things she was just about finished processing our application. She asked for a copy of the employment documents with original signatures, for more proof that my wife and I have been living together for 12 months or more (hint: they like old mail and we didn't send them any), and she wanted to know why all of my past employer letters were so similar to one another. I responded the next day with a scanned copy of a letter from my bank confirming my change of address and said that I'd mail the original with a few more pieces of evidence. I also carefully and candidly explained the situation with my employment letters (I wrote them, past employers fitted them to letterhead, reviewed, signed).
She responded on 26 September (yesterday) saying that my scanned document would be sufficient for her to move forward with a provisional recommendation (aka I'd still need to send originals) and that she decided to do due-diligence and confirm my story about the employment letters with one of my former employers. Finally she said that once she heard back she'd be able to make a recommendation. Today, 27 September, I received word from her that her recommendation was positive (but again, provisional) and that our application has moved on to the verification step! Provided that the mail moves quickly and that they don't need any more information, we'll be approved in two weeks!
Our pattern the whole time has been "hmm, I wonder..." then "search ENZ" then "double check the answers in the official documents." Throughout the whole process, EOI, police certificates, medicals, job search, application forms, etc, I never once had to post a question here because every one that I had was already answered! So again, thanks. And remember that there's a ton of us lurkers out there who this community is helping, and those of you asking the questions are just as helpful to us as those who are answering them!
Originally Posted by benjamincburns
