Change of office and no communication - no progress!

[pss]

Hi,

I put up my application in June at Delhi - India office. Didn't see any progress on application till August when I got email saying my application is transferred to London office as India office has heavy workload. I was told that my application will be assigned to office in a month.

But I didn't hear from them at all till date. It's been over 3.5 months and application has no progress, they did not even assign officer. They are not answering emails.

I see that most of residency applications gets officer assigned within a month. What should I do? My wife says we should not keep emailing - forcing them otherwise it will make wrong impression..

Please help!

Thanks.

[JandM]

How do you know your case hasn't been assigned yet? Has someone answered you to that extent at least?

[pss]

The email I received in August stated that.

[vikusmile]

As you might have seen in other posts/responses from JandM and experiences of other people in the past on this forum that not all COs inform the applicants unless they need more information/documents. Immigration NZ will contact you only if they need more information/documents from you or if you CO wants to arrange an interview. In most of the cases they directly contact applicants' previous/current employers to verify all the information applicant has provided. From what I have heard from my Indian friends, it can take upto 8-9 months to make a decision on your application depending on workloads, time taken due to late responses from your employers and complexity of your case etc. I am not saying its gonna take that long for your case as well but be prepared. I would suggest you not to worry too much about your application otherwise you will have more anxiety. Good luck.

[tickler]

My first CO didn't introduced herself to me. She just asked for additional documents and that's it. I didn't know that she was my CO already.
Fast forward 6 months, another CO introduced herself and scheduled me for an interview.
I contacted INZ last Aug about the delay on my application and that no CO has been assigned to my case. My first CO replied that she was my CO starting from March and that she was waiting for result of the verification of my information.
It really varies for each applicant.

[pss]

Thanks for your answers.

I just called to NZ Immigration phone line and confirmed application is not yet assigned to immigration officer. So this is surprise for me as I was hoping my application to be assigned to office within a month as they claim on website. Also this application includes expatriate New Zealander which was also a plus point for priority processing.

They told me to wait and refused to give me any deadline for my application to be assigned to immigration officer. I really thought London office will be quick but I'm wrong.

Regards,
PS

[graciousinkiwi]

The time they advertise on the website is only indicative. It depends on the workload of the branch and if it is forwarded to a different branch, they may have another time frame.

[JandM]

All INZ timings are only ever their best guess, based on averages of how things have been going recently, never a promise. The number of applications, and how complicated they are, is absolutely unpredictable, and the offices just cope as best they can with what comes. This isn't like buying something, with customer service. INZ is a huge government bureaucracy, and everything takes as long as it takes.

[pss]

I understand its not like buying something and asking for delivery status. But I still believe spending heavy fees for visa application and getting no email response is bad thing.

I referred this link before applying : http://www.immigration.govt.nz/branc.../residence.htm

The website states :

First priority – Partnership and Dependent Child applications (where sponsored by a New Zealand expatriate). The sponsor must be a New Zealand citizen or the holder of a permanent resident visa. In addition, the sponsor must also have been absent from New Zealand for a period of at least five years prior to the date of the application being accepted for consideration, apart from short visits within that period. These applications will be allocated to a case officer as soon as possible (normally within approximately 20 working days).

so when promised 20 working days to allocate officer, in our case there is no news on 113th day!

figures crossed.