Should I Contact my case officer

[akash1508]

Hi,
I am in Auckland and I already applied for Resident visa under skilled migrant category with 135 points. My application was lodged on 10 Oct 2013 and case officer assigned on 31 March 2014. It is already more than six months now, how long does the CO takes and how often I can contact CO.

[Scott_Arendse]

Hi there

Your timeline appears to be consistent to how long my application took. Mine took 8 months through Henderson.

[JandM]

The CO has to check, by referring to third parties, every piece of evidence you have sent in with your application. So, for instance, there will be a letter to the institution your qualification came from to check that (your name), (your date of birth), did attend between (those dates), and did attain (that qualification) and the same for your past job experience(s), and your partnership if any. The replies to all those have to come back correct before the CO can move on the whole application, and if any place doesn't reply promptly, there's nothing to do but wait.

The CO isn't only working your case. They are doing this same thing for ALL the applications they are responsible for at the one time.

There is no point in contacting the CO about nothing - many of them don't reply to queries if they haven't anything specific to say. All COs have to work their allocation of cases in rotation. They take the first, do everything they can for the time (sending out queries, or ticking off replies), then put that to the back and take the next, then the next, then the next, and so on. They don't take any file out of order. Any replies go to your file wherever it is in the queue, and the CO won't see them until it's your file's turn to be looked at again. INZ officials' job focus is to process cases - they are not meant to send 'empty' emails (e.g. 'Dear Mr Applicant, I have not yet had a reply from your university so I have not been able to do anything new with your case, and it is waiting in the queue') as this takes up time when they should be working something that HAS arrived and CAN move someone's situation on. Therefore, quite often, you don't hear anything for some long time (and it always SEEMS long to the person waiting).

[Roberto carlos]

At JandM its very frustrating to wait I would like to say this may be it sounds rude but the person who is waiting might have a lot of work pending on CO decision

[JandM]

Everyone who is applying for a visa has their whole life waiting on the decision - of course they do. But it's unrealistic to think that that, and the resulting impatience, makes the slightest difference to the INZ process. The point of my replies to yourself and all the other people who have the same frustrations is a) to try to show you what is going on while you wait, and b) that a certain amount of queuing is normal, not personal. INZ COs are applying the laws of New Zealand, and they cannot cut quickly across any part.

[Roberto carlos]

Thank you JandM you are right

[akash1508]

thanx jandM....Hope to get response soon from CO.....

[akash1508]

still waiting eighth month is going on now......