Partnership Residence: How long??? Help!!!

[sheepland]

Hi all!

So what happens is that I've been on a student visa for two years, met my Kiwi partner and well, we have a child just born here couple of months ago!

Anyways, I've applied for a partnership work visa in Feb this year and got accepted.

I've just applied for residency and it has been lodged at the Christchurch branch last Wednesday, fees paid etc...

I've provided the same evidence as my partnership work visa and some more, like our recent family trip to Brisbane, etc...

My question is, how long will it take for it to be processed if everything goes fine? Like will they have a pile for residency applications that are likely to be done and dusted real quick or will I be queued behind more complex applications? Also, is the evidence for partnership work visa the same as residency visa under the partnership category?

If they estimate the processing time to be short (say, I've provided everything and they're satisfied), will they still contact me with who's the Case Officer I've been assigned to?

Just hoping that it will be sorted soon, but any advice would me much appreciated.

Cheers

[JandM]

Important: keep on routinely collecting and saving evidence that you are live-in partners, all the while until your Residence eventually comes through, because INZ almost always ask for more evidence immediately before issuing the new visa - this is to make sure that they're not giving a visa to anyone whose relationship has since broken up.

The kind of visa you have now applied for is difficult to judge for timing. Sometimes they go through quickly, which they can, because INZ have already accepted that you are genuine partners and there is nothing else to verify. Other times, they hang about until nearly the end of your existing work visa, as if the thinking is that you're already okay, legally working if you want to be, so you don't actually NEED the extra one yet. My guess is that it rather depends on how busy that particular office happens to be at the time.

[sheepland]

Ah I see, well here's hoping that they keep to their mission of having all applications processed as quickly as possible!

But do you reckon that they will process it quicker at the Christchurch branch than at Auckland or other branches? Since CHCH is stating that it will assign as CO within a month whereas other branches it's 3 months and more?

Cheers and thanks for answering!

[JandM]

INZ timings given on their web pages or from a CO are never a promise, only just their best guess based on how things have been going recently. That means (*cheerful moment!*) you can't really rely on any of it - it takes as long as it takes. Fingers crossed for you. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++