Temporary visitor visa under partnership category

[Choedon2]

Thank you in advance to everyone pitching in their thoughts and experiences. Especially to JandM. I have been going through this forum a lot over the past few months and it has helped me immensely.

I am applying for a partnership based visitor visa for my partner. We have about 4 months of living together when I was overseas earlier this year, tenancy paperwork etc. The reason why we want to apply for visitor’s and not work is because our relationship began in March and is fairly new although we did move in together after a few weeks of seeing each other. We were friends for a very long time before we actually became lovers.

As far as I understand, visitor visas are generally for people who come as tourists with the intention of returning to their home country, when their visa expires. They need to show they have reason to leave NZ and establish ties/commitment to their home country.

From what I have read on the forum and also INZ website the intention of most partnership sponsored temporary visitor visas are to build proof that couples are in a stable and genuine relationship with the intent to continue in NZ. Most then apply for a temporary work visa, so on and so forth once they are eligible. Even under this category someone told me that applicants need to prove to INZ that they will leave before visa expiry but if the intent is to stay on in NZ and apply for work visa after 3 or so months is that not contradictory?

INZ clearly understands the intention of couples applying under this category so I am confused if I should state in my cover letter that my partner will be applying for temporary work visa once he is eligible or to state that he will be leaving NZ once his visa period is up. Both are very different so I want to be careful and not make mistakes here after all we will be dealing with INZ for years to come for his subsequent applications and any wrong step so early on might jeopardise his chances.

Any thoughts or if anyone has gone through similar experiences will be appreciated.

[JandM]

My first thought is that you should be very careful not to state on any application form, which is a legal document, something that isn't true, because INZ CAN (don't often, but can) nit-pick later and call it fraud.

A partner-sponsored visitor's visa requires the same kind of evidence of partnership as a partner-sponsored temporary work visa. I don't quite understand why you're going for the visitor's visa first.

[Choedon2]

Thanks for that JandM

I just wanted to be cautious and figured a partnership-sponsored temporary visitor visa would be correct first step to go about since our relationship was fairly new and thought INZ might not approve the work visa right away and have many questions. Although I do understand we meet the ‘cohabiting’ for at least 3 months criteria I just wasn’t a 100% sure about which category would be suitable to us so I figured we take baby steps

I am going to see my partner for two weeks during the Xmas holiday and we were thinking about submitting the application then. We will have more proof of genuine and stable partnership plus all these months of correspondence proof, etc so I may think about going for partner-sponsored temporary work visa after all. Fingers crossed.

[JandM]

since our relationship was fairly new and thought INZ might not approve the work visa right away and have many questions.

INZ are not the relationship police! It's not up to them to question how come there is a relationship, only to see evidence (of living together) that there IS a relationship.