Evidence for partnership visa

[LTK]

Hi there

My partner and I have been together for just over a year. I am a New Zealand citizen and he is an American citizen. We would like to apply for a partner work visa but I'm not sure whether our evidence is sufficient. We met online in September 2013. My partner first came to visit me here in NZ in April 2014 for a couple of weeks. Then we were apart from each other until he came back to NZ in late July. On August 1st 2014 I went with him to the US and we lived together for almost three months. We lived in an apartment together under a short term contract (he moved back in with his parents after I left to keep saving money). However I had to come back to NZ at the very end of October as I was only over there under the visa waiver programme (three month limit).

We want to live together permanently and we plan to get married within the next year or so. However in order for him to live here and for us to survive financially he would need to get a job here.

The evidence of we have for our application is:

-Photos of us together, a few with us and our family/our friends
-Letters of recommendation from my mum, my sister and her partner, one of my closest friends and her husband, my partners parents, and one of my partners closest friends (I know this is a lot!)
-Rent agreement with both our names
-Vodafone call history of my phone calls to him (vodafone only has six month history though)
-Call history from his phone company of his phone calls to me
-Plane tickets of when he came to see me, and when we flew overseas to his home together
-Skype call history
-Some facebook things (people commenting on us as a couple etc, not sure how relevant or trustworthy it is to immigration though?)
-Cards I've sent to my partner (birthday, Christmas etc)

I've seen a lot of people on here mention things like phone bills, power bills etc with both our names on it however we don't have any of that as we didn't have mail sent there and power etc was included in our rent.

Does this sound like enough? We can't really live together permanently until one of us can get a job in the other's country and this requires a visa.
It's so hard to be apart from my partner and the thought of going through so long without him and then having our visa declined is difficult. I'm sure lots of others out there have been apart longer than me and my partner have so you understand.

Any other examples of evidence anyone can give me would be appreciated and whether or not this is actually enough.

Thanks in advance!

[JandM]

As you've seen from other people's posts, unfortunately you're in a difficult situation. INZ usually only take a partnership application seriously when the couple have been living together for three months and still are. It's possible they might go along with you, since you had to come away to be legal for the visa, but there's no way to be certain they would look kindly on you. And other people in similar situations have found themselves offered a partner-sponsored visitor's visa, or a suggestion that they just use a regular visitor's visa, to enable the foreign partner to be in NZ and amass more qualifying time living together - but that of course means the incomer can't work till they get a different visa in due course.

You may find that the professionals around here will have more detailed suggestions, so certainly see if they have. Also, those who have been through similar situations may well comment.

However, as a lay person having been reading other people's stories over time, and looking at your list of evidence, I think you are definitely light on 'official' sources, like service contracts in either or both name(s), mail from various sources, doctors' records, joint memberships etc. - I know you've seen the old threads for the full list of suggestions. If it comes to the point that your fiancé has to gather some savings so as to come to you and collect more evidence, that's what you'll need to concentrate on from Day 1, and keep steadily collecting, week by week, then get your application in the minute you sensibly can (around 12 weeks), while he is with you.

[chard]

Hi, first post :-)

Does anyone know how much weight facebook screen shots hold?
A lot of my timeline and evidence if taken from this as its one of the the main ways we maintain constant contact.
I have so so many questions but will leave it there for now.

Any help will b gratefully received and can i also say a huge thank you to all the help already given on these pages. its all so much easier to digest than the official guidance.

Thanks guys

[JandM]

Certainly Facebook screen shots are one recognized kind of evidence, but there needs to be more, of other kinds, to show that you've been living together at times as well.

[chard]

Thank you.
Does anyone know roughly what sort of things need to be included in the supporting letter from friends and family?

[JandM]

When my son was going through this, I, and a family friend, wrote letters about when we first met his by then wife (a NZer), things we knew about her (proving that we really knew her as a person), occasions she'd joined in with as a member of the family - both letters entirely chatty and personal, giving circumstantial evidence of our being real people who really knew her - and her father and a family friend in NZ did the same about my son.

The letters that each person writes should be different, because they will have met the partner who is coming into the family group at different times and had different things in common with him or her.

[Sandwich]

This may not be particularly helpful for your current circumstances, but if you decide you can make it work with him coming over here and not working for a few months, this is what we did. We were doing this as cheap as possible since we had to survive on just my income.

I met my partner online in Nov 2013. In April 2014 he came over here on the 3 month visa waiver (he's American). Two months later we applied for a sponsored extended visitor visa which took us up to the end of September 2014. With that my partner wrote a letter about our relationship and how we wanted the extension so we could gather more evidence for the partnership visa, the tenancy agreement (which shows me as the lease holder and him as an occupant) and bank statement showing we had ~$1800 in the bank (it was pay day). At the start of September (don't leave it this late to apply for your visa :P) we applied for the partnership visa. With that we supplied:
-The same tenancy agreement as before.
-Bank statements from April-current, the account was a joint account from May onwards and showed our address
-We saved every single receipt we got from April-current, highlighted whose debit card was used to pay (both went to the joint account anyway) and noted what each of them was e.g. "We met up for lunch on my lunch break at work and got nachos and a soda." They were all in a ziplock bag and I have no idea if the immigration officer bothered to go through them all, but hey.
-Mail addressed to each of us. We didn't have any mail addressed to us jointly (aside from the bank statements, but those were just printed off from the bank rather than mailed). His mail was regarding his bloodwork results (he did the immigration medical here in NZ) and his police clearance from the states, as well as order confirmation emails we printed off from The Warehouse and Trade Me e.g "[Full name], your order has shipped. Details as below: [Our address]."
-Photos of us together. These were almost entirely selfies that I had posted to facebook, printed off showing the dates they were uploaded as well as the comments from friends, as well as the "[Her name] and [His name] are now in a relationship" post from Facebook and all the comments.
-A timeline of our relationship e.g Date we met, the date we went to stay with my family, when we opened the joint bank account etc.
-A letter from each of us regarding our relationship. They were very sappy and each ~3 pages long.

Living on one income for 6 months sucked, but it worked.