Partner based work visa 2 months processing time!?

[rsrobin61]

Hello everyone, I lived in nz for 3 years(student visa & work visa). Then i moved back to my home country. I have been in relationship with my partner from over 2 years who is nz citizen. I applied for partner based visitor visa it was declined because we never lived together. So to meet that requirement we moved to 3rd country which allow us both to live for 6 months so we can live together and collect the required evidences. So after living together for 3 months we had plenty of living together proofs plus all other proofs back from 3 years(Joint bank account statements, skype/whatsapp records,letters sent to each other etc). I applied for partner based work visa on 4th of October and on 16th of November we both had phone interviews which was 40 minutes long for me and 20 minutes for my partner. Case officer was happy with the answers and it was easy for us(mostly about each other's liking and daily stuff). Now our visa for the country we are staying in are about to expire in 3-4 more weeks and we fired at least 5-6 emails to the case officer and went to tt services and they emailed them too but so far no reply. It looks like our application is sitting at the back of the backlog queue. inz have my passport and I cannot travel back to my home country without it and don't want to overstay here either. It will be exactly 2 months on 4th of December we applied and so far there is no news. Can anyone please shed light on this is it normal for work visa to take that long? Thanks everyone for your times. You are very helpful people.

[JandM]

It's not NOT normal, put it that way.

On the issue of your passport, so you don't overstay, you have every right to keep calling INZ. Ordinary call-takers would not be able to deal with the issue, I don't expect, so you may need to push to be put through to a supervisor.

[rsrobin61]

Thanks for reply JandM. Well we went to the processing branch with my partner and only she was allowed to talk the High Commissioner of New Zealand. she explained him the situation but he said they cannot help with this matters but gave us email address of Branch manager who is New Zealander, we emailed her twice and she have not returned any email. It is really frustrating situation stuck in 3rd country and all we can do is email them, they don't even have contact numbers here. We had 6 months of stay here and we were told it takes 1 month to process the visa. My partner is going back to nz in two weeks as her visa will expire soon. There is no way to get in touch with supervisor. Our immigration lawyer is in NZ so only thing he can do is email them. What if he calls chch branch? would they be able to help in any way. We are just stuck here and feel really helpless.

[JandM]

Maybe you should look at this. https://www.immigration.govt.nz/cont...aint-about-inz It says the first stage is to write to the branch, and you've done that.

[rsrobin61]

Thanks for the link JandM. Since we have immigration lawyer from chch working on our case. Is it best if he follow that stage 2 procedure or applicant. We are bit scared that it may annoy the branch manager which can lead to negative effect on application.

[JandM]

INZ has in their possession an important legal document of yours, the retention of which may prevent you from travelling, and therefore cause you inadvertently to break the laws of another country. You have EVERY right to expect that they will treat your request for its return with urgency.

And INZ officials have to follow official procedures. Making a reasonable request, such as you have done, is not going to cause biased action. COs get annoyed when people keep pestering them for no solid reason, but even then, they have to follow the guidelines. Cases don't get decided on the basis of a CO's emotional state.