Residence via Partnership Category Questions

[Cheese]

Hi, I have a few questions regarding the Residence via partnership. I'm Canadian and my partner is Australian and we plan on moving to NZ this year temporary on a WHV and then applying the partner visa while we are in NZ sometime down the line.

• Does Evidence have to be certified / original? We have a lot of evidence for our relationship but a lot are full color scanned copies of receipts an bills.
• Do I have to send in my passport strait away? I require my passport for work as I take frequent trips usually 2-3 times a month.
• Generally are people who are coming of a WHV eligible for an interim visa?
• Current processing time? From what I can see it says 6-9 months is that before or after a CO has been assigned.

If anyone has any relevant links for me to read that would also be wonderful.


Thanks for any help!

[ChrisMwn]

•Does Evidence have to be certified / original? We have a lot of evidence for our relationship but a lot are full color scanned copies of receipts an bills.

You'll need certified copies of personal documents such as birth certificate etc. Original or certified copies are preferred but if they don't exist there's not much you can do. Same applies to e-documents. Remember the focus is on the last 12 months of evidence.


•Do I have to send in my passport strait away? I require my passport for work as I take frequent trips usually 2-3 times a month.
You need only provide a certified copy .

•Generally are people who are coming of a WHV eligible for an interim visa?
Yes, but it wont come with the ability to work.

•Current processing time? From what I can see it says 6-9 months is that before or after a CO has been assigned.
For residence application, yes, 6-9 months is a good estimate, sometimes much quicker. Temporary visa application 3-4 weeks.-

[JandM]

F20.15 c here http://www.immigration.govt.nz/opsmanual/30880.htm mentions 'originals or certified copies'.

Passport - you can send a certified copy of this at the outset. They will let you know when they need the original.

Interim visas are issued if a person has had one kind of temporary visa, and has applied for another kind of temporary visa, NOT residence. http://www.immigration.govt.nz/migra...erimvisaqa.htm If you applied for a partner-sponsored temporary work visa in the first place, before moving on to partner-sponsored residence, you would be eligible for an interim visa for that.

Here http://www.enz.org/forum/showthread.php?t=43172 is an old thread from someone who was intending to get NZ Residence through partnership with an Australian. Some of the answers there will probably be of interest, and also you will find posts from me where I linked to more threads with relevant discussion.

[Cheese]

Thanks for the information didn't expect such great replies so quickly! Great news on the passport info, it was my main worry.

Is there an advantage / disadvantage for me applying for partner-sponsored temporary work visa and then the partner-sponsored residence?

At the minute we are thinking about going on my WHV, apply for the partner-sponsored temporary visa and then apply for the partner-sponsored residence in 2017.

[JandM]

There's possibly an advantage to you in applying first for the work visa, if you can see at the outset that you won't have enough time on the WHV for the residence visa to come through. Or, if you've applied for the residence visa, and it hasn't come through when the end of the WHV is approaching, if you then lodge the application for the work visa, you will automatically get an interim visa, which, as mentioned above, they can't give you for a residence application. Of course, if you can get your application for residence in quickly, so it could be processed and come through before your WHV runs out, you'll only have to pay one lot of fees.

[David12345]

•Does Evidence have to be certified / original? We have a lot of evidence for our relationship but a lot are full color scanned copies of receipts an bills.

You'll need certified copies of personal documents such as birth certificate etc. Original or certified copies are preferred but if they don't exist there's not much you can do. Same applies to e-documents. Remember the focus is on the last 12 months of evidence.

Hi Chris, regarding the evidence for partnership based residency vs partnership based temporary work visa, I have recently learnt that evidence does not have to be original for partnership based temporary applications, but for partnership based residency things have to be original? I have a friend who has been particularly caught out by this, all of her joint utility bills with her partner have been emailed to her as PDF attachments (like most bills these days) and she printed these for her partnership based temporary application, but now as she is about to apply for residency we are guessing these may not be acceptable as they were not sent to her in the post?

I called the immigration helpline and they said that if something is printed from an email (a PDF invoice) that it is considered original, but other people have said they have to be posted invoices/statements etc for residency, is this correct? would love some information regarding this, thanks

[JandM]

I have recently learnt that evidence does not have to be original for partnership based temporary applications, but for partnership based residency things have to be original? ...other people have said they have to be posted invoices/statements etc for residency

Where have you heard this from, and on what authority? All kinds of rumours go around among people hoping to get visas. I get the impression that some applicants voice an 'I wonder if...' sentence, then others, feeling anxious (as is only natural), pass it on as if it were fact, as one more thing to worry about. You've asked INZ, they've said the printouts are fine, and they are the people whose ruling matters.

https://www.immigration.govt.nz/new-...-resident-visa Click on 'Show all evidence' and you will see a list of what is required. There is no mention anywhere of originals versus copies.

[David12345]

Where have you heard this from, and on what authority? All kinds of rumours go around among people hoping to get visas. I get the impression that some applicants voice an 'I wonder if...' sentence, then others, feeling anxious (as is only natural), pass it on as if it were fact, as one more thing to worry about. You've asked INZ, they've said the printouts are fine, and they are the people whose ruling matters.

https://www.immigration.govt.nz/new-...-resident-visa Click on 'Show all evidence' and you will see a list of what is required. There is no mention anywhere of originals versus copies.

Hi J&M,

I have been told this by an immigration advisor who posts on here, "Remember that everything must be an original or certified copy for a residence visa – no downloaded bank statements or utility bills – all paper" is what i was told.

I also saw that here http://onlineservices.immigration.go...nual/30880.htm it says under "F2.20.15 Evidence of living together in partnership that is genuine and stable" that it says "Evidence about whether the partnership is genuine and stable may include but is not limited to, original or certified copies of documents and any other information such as:" then it goes on to list possible types of evidence of partnership.

Also, reading this thread (http://www.enz.org/forum/showthread.php?t=44854) I see this person was told by their CO that electronic print outs were not acceptable.

Is this all correct or am I mistaken somehow? There seems to be little information available about this matter.

[JandM]

original or certified copies of documents and any other information such as

From there, you'd then need to say, 'What counts as a document?' From other people's experience, things like certificates and diplomas were what had to be original or certified.

Notice on that same thread you linked to http://www.enz.org/forum/showthread....394#post504394, ChrisMwn the LIA saying, "INZ are being pretty tuff and this may be only this case officer." There can be a certain amount of individual variation.

Okay, you have reason to have been concerned about this, but it's possible that the general instruction to INZ COs may have been relaxed just recently, in the light of the now very widespread practice of online statements and bills. If you go by what INZ told you, if there is subsequently any objection to printouts from a CO, you can refer him/her back to what you were told on (whatever) date. IF s/he persists in wanting paper proof, s/he would have to allow you time to get it then.

[David12345]

From there, you'd then need to say, 'What counts as a document?' From other people's experience, things like certificates and diplomas were what had to be original or certified.

Notice on that same thread you linked to http://www.enz.org/forum/showthread....394#post504394, ChrisMwn the LIA saying, "INZ are being pretty tuff and this may be only this case officer." There can be a certain amount of individual variation.

Okay, you have reason to have been concerned about this, but it's possible that the general instruction to INZ COs may have been relaxed just recently, in the light of the now very widespread practice of online statements and bills. If you go by what INZ told you, if there is subsequently any objection to printouts from a CO, you can refer him/her back to what you were told on (whatever) date. IF s/he persists in wanting paper proof, s/he would have to allow you time to get it then.

Thanks J&M, we will apply with what we have and see how we go