Application for Residency (Through Partnership) Re: English Language requirement

[SkyLight]

Good day! Thanks to this forum for all the information about evidences to collect. Hopefully we have done pretty well, my husband sent his application on the 4th of September to the Christchurch branch since we are in the South Island, and we got an email last week that it has been forwarded to Auckland Central. Thursday last week, 17th September, we got all the original documents back. Next day we received an email from the case officer saying the initial assessment has been finished, but would like to have more documents supplied regarding my husband's English Language background.

For this, we have sent two letters from his employers (he has been working in New Zealand for more than a year now) stating how long he has been employed and the fact that English is the language used in the workplace. We sent this as guided by the manual saying:

"You may be considered to meet the minimum standard if you can show you’ve been lawfully employed in New Zealand for at least one year (self-employment does not qualify) in a job where English is the language used. You’ll need to provide a letter from your employer giving a contact phone number and address. The letter must state your occupation and dates of employment, and confirm that English is the main language used in your job."

She said however that this isn't enough ( : ) and was asking my husband what other documents can he submit and to do so before 1 October.

We have now sent in his diploma and transcript of records from university showing that he has had English courses/papers the four years of his study, and has a bachelor of Science qualification (she mentioned something like "But what is your qualification?"or something to that effect).

We also sent in former employer's certificates back home in the Philippines where he worked for an American company and that he needed to be able to speak English proficiently in order to perform well at work (and we also included certificates of recognition from his previous jobs)

I realise now that we should've just sent everything in the first place, but we honestly thought since he was here now for more than a year on a partnership-based work visa and working full time in an English-speaking/NZ workplace then that would be enough.

The documents should have arrived on Friday last week, but we haven't heard back from the officer. Do you guys reckon we send an email to ask if these have been received and if they should now be enough evidence? Or do we just wait for a while to not be too annoying : We're a bit worried now because his work visa expires in December, and the only reason we waited a bit before applying was we needed the solid year of working here (for the English language background requirement, how ironic) and also as added length of time of 'living together' since we lived apart for 6 months when I first moved here.

I should add though that my husband asked the CO if she meant that he needed to take the IELTS but she said no, no, not needed.

I guess I'm just looking for any more ideas so we could prepare in case she asks for more documents, because we really hope to get things going due to the time constraint of his work visa. I was actually quite surprised that we had a CO assigned quickly, but was quite gutted by this additional documents needed. Oh well, at least they've sent the original documents we sent in back already so in case we need to apply for another work visa we've got our "evidence" sorted. We hope that we don't need to though, since that's another couple hundred dollars to be spent...

Thanks for taking the time to read this!

[ChrisMwn]

I don't understand why he is being asked for English language evidence if he is applying under Family( partnership ) category?

[jeremylee99]

Hi there,

You can request from his University Registrar a Certification that the degree he studied was entirely taught in English.

Regards,

[JandM]

I don't understand why he is being asked for English language evidence if he is applying under Family( partnership ) category?

As Chris says. Here is the list of requirements. http://www.immigration.govt.nz/opsmanual/46503.htm There is nothing about English there at all.

Edited to add, ah, now I've found it. It seems that because you didn't apply before to include him, NOW he has to show English ability. http://www.immigration.govt.nz/opsmanual/46515.htm

[SkyLight]

Thanks for all your replies!

We have received an email from the CO which says the documents we sent are satisfactory and that "nothing further is required from you." Yay!

She goes on to say that all she's waiting for right now is the NZ Police Check which apparently is likely to take another 1-2 months (due to the major backlog/delays that I have read about here as well and in the newspaper).

So the waiting game begins, but hopefully everything will be alright soon.

Really appreciate all the information we have gathered from reading through the old partnership threads, if and when his residency is finally approved, I will post our timeline and the evidences we included soon to help out any new applicants as well. Again, many thanks!

[JandM]

That sounds like good news.

[SkyLight]

Hi everyone! Just another update. As per my post on 23 September, my husband's CO said that we were waiting for the police check which would probably take another 1-2 months. We then sent an e-mail a couple of weeks ago asking if we should apply for a further work visa because my husband's visa expires the first week of December. She replied that we should contact her again around 2nd week of November to reassess the situation before applying.

The good news is, we got another update today: the police checks have come through, and she has now "recommended (his) application for approval, and should have an outcome in the next 10 working days"!!! :-)

So nothing is final yet, but starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. We have been quite anxious about the fact that we might need to apply for a further visa, but now it looks like this won't be the case anymore. So again, THANK YOU to this forum for all the information we've perused through and advice throughout the whole process. Good luck to all those in a similar situation!

[Gary_wendy]

Thats really good news skylight,, i lodged my partnership application from Australia on 14th of September but haven't heard anything yet. The only news i got from them was that it is getting processed in Auckland branch. Just one more question,, when you received your documents back then you must have received a letter,, in that letter did they give you any time frame for allocation of CO. Mines says 1 to 3 months,, one month already gone, i called the INZ helpline but no updates yet.

[Gary_wendy]

Regarding police check : i just spoke to INZ helpline and they told me that they normally apply for police check within 2 weeks from the date of lodgement of application even if the CO hasn't been allocated. I was bit surprised!!

[SkyLight]

I think it's almost all the same 1-3 months, they will really give you the maximum number of months for whichever step of the process is next (i.e., CO allocation). They probably do this so as to set realistic expectations. Best of luck!