Applying for residence under partnership category, Advice needed!

[MishMash]

Hi,

I am looking to apply for a residence visa based on partnership but have a few questions I need answered before I can go ahead with the application. I have tried calling the office in London that deals with the visa applications but I could only speak to someone who I'm sure was just reading out information from the New Zealand website which I can do myself! What I really need is some insiders information.

My partner is a New Zealand citizen and we have been living together for 11 months. We have already started gathering the documents we need as we were originally intending on getting a temporary work visa under partnership basis and then apply for residence once we are in New Zealand, but we have started thinking maybe we should just apply for residence now. The question we need answered is, if we hand in our application this month we would not have been living together for a full 12 months, but will the immigration department hold our application for a month until the time is 12 months exactly or is there any chance they will just refuse to process it? As it is a lot of money we don't want to risk getting this wrong. There is some information on the New Zealand website that says they will hold back the application until the 12 months is reached but was just wondering if anyone has some experience with this.

Also would it be a problem if I send in General Medical form for the residence visa as I think they only require the Limited one? I've already had the General Medical done and don't want to have to pay again to do the Limited.

And last question, does anyone have any experience with trying to prove they have never lived in their country of citizenship?

Thanks for listening, any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Michelle

[JandM]

Hello.

Hang about till Karen Phillips sees your queries - she's a Licensed Immigration Adviser who's also a member of our forum, and she's very good on the wrinkles of things like this.

[Karen Phillips]

...well I have enough wrinkles of my own! Firstly, there is no longer an enquiry line into INZ London as the one in NZ is now handing all calls and it is open 24/7. The person you were speaking to, may well not have had enough information to be able to help you. You need to have been together for 12 months at the point when a Case Officer is assigned. This is happening fairly quickly at present (in about a month), but I suspect that with the right cover letter, if you hang on just another week or two, you would be fine. There will be no problem having had a General Medical instead of a Limited one - the problem only occurs the other way round. There is a problem with not having ever lived in your country of citizenship - it comes up more often than you realise. The best solution, if you can't get the police check you need, is to get a sworn declaration to this effect - an affidavit. This will probably cost you around £70. If your country of citizenship is friendly enough that they would give you a "No trace" police certificate, this might be cheaper. INZ will not just refuse your application and charge you all that money. They could return it "failed lodgement" but the worst this would cost you is £19 VAC fee. If you send me a Private Message (preferably towards the end of the week as I am out of the office until Thursday), I would be happy to look at your cover letter to make sure you won't fall foul of the system. If I am only looking at what you have done, I won't charge you. If there is a lot of work involved, I may have to negotiate - but I am not known to be unreasonable (I hope!).

[MishMash]

Hi Karen, thanks for the help! Feel much more relieved about choosing to apply for the resident visa after your advice. I hadn't even thought about attaching a cover letter but we are still a few weeks away from handing in my application so have a little bit of time to organise that.

In relation to the police check from my country of citizenship, I am still waiting to get a reply from them and hoping they are going to send me a letter saying they have no trace of me which is what you said would be accepted. I now also have to get a police certificate from Australia as I lived there for 12 months a few years ago, and as I didn't need it for the temporary visa I haven't sorted that out yet. Hopefully it will be done quick.

Apart from that and my partners police check we are almost ready to apply. I don't think I can contact you on a private message yet as I think I need to make a few more posts on here in order to have that privilege, but when everything is sorted I may send you my cover letter to look at (that's if the offer is still valid by then!)

Thanks again and have a lovely afternoon,

Michelle

[Karen Phillips]

I look forward to hearing from you if you need any help! I hope it goes well for you!

[MishMash]

Hi Karen, I was hoping to seek some advice from you, I don't know how to send you a private message so I hope you will receive this.

I have had a few posts on here about my visa so far and I have just received the last bit of evidence I needed to send my application off. Only now I have just read a new post from another user who is applying for residence to the London office saying printed off bank statements are not acceptable. I am in a bit of a panic because nearly all our evidence that proves my partner and I live at the same address is from online bank statements we have printed out. My partner has almost no other addressed letters apart from a few bills. What happens if I send the visa in and the IO is not satisfied with this evidence and requires original letters only? We simply do not have any (unless the bank can back date all the paper statements we need). Will the visa be declined and at that stage we lose the full visa fee or is it a case of us paying the administration fee and we apply for a different visa?

To add to the stress I have only one month validity left on my medical examination so have absolutely no time left to work this out as I can't risk the medical expiring.

Any advice on this would be so helpful, if I don't hear from you I guess I have no choice but to hand the visa in as is and hope I don't pay £800 for nothing !!

Regards,
Michelle

[wibbly]

I look forward to hearing from you if you need any help! I hope it goes well for you!

Hi Karen,

From what I have read, you are well versed on all things residency in NZ, and I could really do with some advice.

I am a British citizen currently in NZ with my Kiwi (de facto) partner of 9 years who has moved back for the family business. We have previously been living in the UK, Australia (where I was granted a 5 year defacto visa) and Sri Lanka and are now settling in Nelson.

My residency visa was sent to the Christchurch office on 10th April 2016 and I received and email from the office saying the application had been lodged on 21/04/2016. Based on this I have a few questions

1. Can anybody give me an idea of processing times at the CHC office? How long to get a case officer and then how long until a decision is made?

2. I am still within the age to be able to apply for a holiday working visa. Are you able to apply for this while waiting on residency? Obviously I am currently unable to work and if the residency is going to take months this is a one solution.

Thanks for your help.

Jennie