SMC Timeline so far

[benharris249]

Nearly there! was invited to apply beginning of Feb, lodged the application Monday 4th May, would of been sooner but Police certificates took ages to arrive from sunny England! We then received our documents back on the Wednesday along with an update saying its been accepted and officially lodged! Getting the documents back in 2 days seemed pretty quick so I'm hoping this means our acceptance should come through fairly quickly as our current visa runs out in October, and the letter says processing times are between 9 and 12 months in Auckland Central.

Anybody had any experience getting approved fairly quickly, or coming close to their current visa expiry date? Should I be worried??? My partner definitely is!

[JandM]

INZ are not usually in any big hurry to finalize things for those already in NZ, working on some other visa. A scenario we often see is that the applicant will write to INZ when their existing visa has about eight weeks to run, pointing out that it is coming to an end, and asking if it's likely their Residence will come through in time, or do they need to apply for a work visa to cover the gap? Very frequently, the Residence magically appears within the next couple of weeks. Even if it doesn't, there is still time to get another work visa if they tell you it's necessary, so don't worry.

[benharris249]

Thanks, I thought it would be OK anyway. I Assumed the timelines they give is worst case, then I found some timelines on this forum which made me and my especially my partner panic! My car finally arrives from the UK in 2 weeks time as well and I've been without it long enough let alone if we had to go back to England! Will update on here when we hear anything, thanks again!