Partner's Work/Visitor Visa

[ak2002]

Hello All,

Here is my situation,
EOI Selected on 10/04/2015, total points - 160
Application Sent on 02/07/2015
Case officer assigned on 23/07/2015
Case officer asked for further information such as bank statement, IRD statements and pay slips. - on 23/07/2015
Additional information supplied on 23/07/2015
CO sent email to current and previous employers on 27th July and they replied back on the same day.
I have been asking for the status and the CO is always replying "Your application is under process and i do not require any further information at this stage".

Now, here comes the main issue!!

I got engaged to my partner in April 2015 who is currently living in India, we started talking to each other in February this year and we went during my visit to India and went out on few dates and decided to get engaged. This is an culturally arranged marriage and we have not been living together, we are talking to each other every day and lots of pictures for the time we spent during my visit to India. We will be getting married in January in India and she will be joining me immediately after the wedding. I cannot apply for her visitor visa under Partnership based on Culturally arranged marriage as it requires the sponser to have residence visa, which i dont have yet!

I would really appreciate if you can advice any other option i can use to bring her immediately after the wedding, can she apply for her visitor visa herself and get that converted into work visa once she is in New Zealand? I realise that the process will be much more simpler for her if i already had the residence visa. but in this case, i cant really wait for my residence visa to come first and they apply for her partnership based visitor visa.

Any suggestions?

Thanks in Advance.

[JandM]

There is not any quick and easy solution for someone in your position.

A visa for a culturally arranged marriage can ONLY be obtained if the marriage is to take place IN NEW ZEALAND (even if you were already a Resident, and you say you're not, yet).

Otherwise, all partner-sponsored visas depend on INZ seeing evidence that the couple have been living together. (Marriage is not essential, and not given any particular weight as evidence.) Although no minimum time is mentioned in the regulations, in practice we see that INZ tend to take applications seriously with evidence of about three months' cohabitation, and for preference, this is the time immediately leading up to the application, with the couple continuing to live together.

Of course, this is difficult for people in your situation, where you are based at present in two different countries, and there have been many people on the forum before you to say so. You say, 'I can't really wait...' but legally, you can do nothing BUT wait until she has a suitable visa.

She could apply independently for a visitor's visa, but there is a problem with that, in that a visitor by definition is expected to make a short trip and then go back to their country of origin, so INZ look for evidence that they have ties there (a home, commitments, a job to go back to, etc.), trying to ensure that this person will not overstay. But of course, your partner will be hoping to stay. The whole point of getting to NZ for her is to have the chance of building up evidence of living together, so she can apply for a partner-sponsored temporary work visa. http://www.immigration.govt.nz/migra...milystream.htm (And, incidentally, you on a temporary work visa can already sponsor her for that, once you have your evidence.)

Some foreign partners have found it possible, if they have skilled qualifications, to ask for a visitor's visa on the basis of looking for work - see here. http://www.immigration.govt.nz/NR/rd...20June2014.pdf Other people have asked for a visitor's visa, with a covering letter explaining their situation (marriage, not having lived together, and wanting to do so to get their evidence) openly, but this sometimes works, and sometimes doesn't.

Sorry not to be able to tell you any quick and easy fix on this, but that's because there isn't one. Good luck.