4 Questions on partnership visa, any info would be great

[David12345]

Hi there,

My partner is about to apply for a work visa based on partnership in a few weeks, she is NZ on a limited visa at the moment and will be returning to Armenia just before it expires and then applying for the partnership based work visa in the Moscow branch. I have four questions I am wondering if anyone could share some info on them, any help would be great!

1 - Most of her friends do not speak English, can they write their supporting letters in Russian as immigration officers in Moscow branch can read Russian and English, I know English is required for official documents like the police record, but I figure a few supporting letters may not be so important to have in English?

2 - With the letters we are sending to prove our address such as utility bills, do we just send the first page which has our name and date and basic info (like something which makes it obvious its a utility bill) or do we have to provide all pages? Some of our utility bills come with about 5-10 pages of info and a lot of it would be irrelevant in my opinion and we are trying to get the stack of papers we are supplying down a bit as our application is very thick at the moment.

3 - Is it possible to be granted a partnership based work visa while we are not living together? We will be living together until her limited visa expires in a few weeks and I can not get time off work to go back to her country with her, so we do have a (in my opinion) a very good reason for not living together at the time of application, perhaps they can over look the "living together at time of application" requirement in our situation if living together at the time of application is required for a partnership based work visa?

4 - Has anyone else applied for a partnership based visa from the Moscow branch (or any other branch) and supplied all of their evidence in a ring binder folder with their papers in plastic pockets? I have recently herd this is not the preferred method for supplying evidence and it is best to put everything in a large envelope, but in our situation it seems to be our best option, we have so much evidence to supply that we have completely filled a folder. We also applied for the first visitor visa the same way and did not have any feedback about using a folder with plastic pockets.

Any help would be very much appreciated.

Thanks

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[JandM]

Can the LIAs help with this fairly unusual situation?

[ice]

I am no licensed immigration adviser just sharing my personal experience with INZ
Hey so I will try to awnser the things I know .

1. Everything has to be translated into english because you can not know if the case officer actually speaks russian and even then it probably has to be translated because these are the rules from INZ.

http://glossary.immigration.govt.nz/...anslations.htm

2. What I did was just send the first page of utility bills with the name and basic information and it was completely fine. Will have to be translated too though.

3. I was actually granted a residence visa in europe while my girlfriend was in NZ. What you need to show is "Explanation regarding current period of separation" ( was exact wording of my CO in eMail when he saw she is in NZ in the computer ) .
I just explained that I wanted to wait for my visa to finalize and she had to go to university. Also provided Facebook and Skype screenshots to show we kept in contact during the time of separation. No questions asked and was granted residence a few weeks later so it definitely works and you do seem to have a compelling explanation that you should attach to your application maybe in a cover letter.

F2.30.1 Assessment of periods of separation
If a principal applicant and their partner have lived apart for periods during their partnership, the application should not automatically be declined. Instead, immigration officers should determine whether there are genuine and compelling reasons for any period(s) of separation.
Determining whether there are genuine and compelling reasons will depend on the circumstances in each case, and may require consideration of:
either partner's family, education or employment commitments;
the duration of the partnership and the length of time the couple has spent apart;
the extent to which the couple has made efforts to be together during the time apart.

http://www.immigration.govt.nz/opsmanual/index.htm

4. I have no experience with the Moscow branch but INZ generally doesn't like any plastic folders or binders what so ever. When your application gets there it won't be the CO that has the first look at your application before that a support officer will copy/scan things and organize your application for processing and probably throw away your binder anyway. I send few plastic pockets for important documents and they were never returned....

Good luck

[David12345]

Thanks for you info ice, its quite helpful, I have read on the Moscow inz page that they have 8 staff all of who are fluent in English and Russian which is why we are wondering if supporting letters can be written in Russian.
As J&M said hopefully there is a LIA reading this who can also share their thoughts?????

[JandM]

You have to follow INZ's instructions, which are given here. http://glossary.immigration.govt.nz/...anslations.htm

[ChrisMwn]

have PM" d you (David 12345)