Originally Posted by
adwood88
Thanks for the advice everyone!
I agree with you ChrisMwn that it would be better to be as upfront as possible, although in this case, she would be coming here to genuinely engage in study, with a view to improving her prospects in the NZ job market.
Our relationship is a "parallel" motivation, but the question is whether INZ would care about this, or want us to try another route? (My sponsorship of the student visa will make it clear to anyone looking that there is probably this "parallel" angle to the application).
Something that I didn't mention in my original posting is that we plan for her to come and spend time in NZ on a visitors visa later this year (with my sponsorship), prior to the period of study (which would probably be the 2017 academic year). We were looking at 3 weeks, but on the basis of what others in this thread have said, perhaps we should aim for 8 weeks (the maximum she can take off), and then use that time living together as the basis for some sort of partnership-based working or visitors visa later?
Again, any thoughts or reflections welcome!
I have been in a similar situation, I meet an Armenian girl online (on Facebook) it was an accident really (long story) but we became friends and after a few years of chatting and skyping each other we became partners, although we had not even meet in person. I then went to live with her for three weeks in Armenia and then I came home to NZ. Together we gathered all of the evidence we had of our relationship, photos together from when I was there, invoices for the flowers I had sent to her every month (about a years worth) our Skype logs and supporting letters from friends and family. We applied for a visitor visa as we knew we had no chance at a partnership visa as the living together for a good amount of time requirement is quite important to them. They declined the visitor visa because we said in our cover letter that we wanted to gather evidence of living together so we could apply for a partnership visa in NZ, but our CO offered a limited visa as an alternative and said her visitor visa was declined, reading the emails from our CO there main concern was that we had only been together for 3 weeks in person and that she did not intend a temporary stay, the two years of online contact basically meant very little to them, we were told our relationship could not be considered stable.
But we took the limited visa which was for 4.5 months to use this time to gather evidence for a partnership visa, the only catch is that since she is on a limited visa she has to return home to apply for her next visa while I have to stay in NZ (for work).
Perhaps our honesty was appreciated, I am not sure.
I would not consider applying for a student visa without telling them about your relationship, because when she goes to apply for a partnership visa and they see that you were together before she applied for her student visa you will have some trouble on your hands. If it were me I would either go for the student visa but make it clear you are in a relationship also, or apply for a visitor visa for a few months, gather solid proof of living together for those months (joint bills etc) then apply for a partnership visa. You may wind up with a limited visa like we did but it still allows you to gather evidence.
Good luck and let us know how you go!