Spouse genuine relationship proof

[ratishjob10]

Hi,

I intend to be the primary applicant for NZ skilled migrant visa. Dependents would be my wife and one child.

Although we have a genuine marriage certificate endorsed by the state (Kerala, India), my passport permanent address is in the Mumbai, Maharashtra and her (my wife)passport permanent address is from Kerala (different states in India). Post marriage in 2014 , both of us lived together from Sept 2014 to Aug 2016 in Pune, Maharashtra where I had my job and she was pursuing studies. From Aug 2016 she has been on a break from her studies and went to state of Kerala , to give birth to our son. She has been there ever since Aug 2016. I move for work to Chennai, state of Tamilnadu and have been there since November 2016.

Do we have to prove to immigration officer that we have been living together for a period of 12 months explicitly (other than marriage certificate)? Because I work in a global company and their work experience certificate does not mention 'Pune' anywhere. My work as a consultant requires me to travel frequently within India. Bit since our marriage I haven't crossed the borders of India, always within India, moving between states.

How to prove that I have been living with my wife when our addresses are different in passport (different states but both in India)?

An is it mandatory that my wife attempts IELTS? Does NZ immigration accept PTE scores? I see that PTE scores of 58 are acceptable but haven't come across a person that attempted PTE for New Zealand skilled migrant immigration.

I am reading instructions at http://onlineservices.immigration.govt.nz/opsmanual/ . The right place to read instructions right?

Regards,
Ratish

[JandM]

Hello.

About your last query first, the Operational Manual gives all the fine detail of the requirements. However, it can be difficult to find specific information, and for a general view (often enough for many queries), you can use the INZ website (with its Search function top right). https://www.immigration.govt.nz/new-zealand-visas

Do we have to prove to immigration officer that we have been living together for a period of 12 months explicitly (other than marriage certificate)?

Yes, you do, and they look most closely at the 12 months leading up to a Residence application. INZ consider partnership as living together. http://glossary.immigration.govt.nz/Partner.htm And there are old threads here https://www.google.co.uk/#q=site:enz...tnership+proof with discussion and examples of what people have used as evidence to show that they are living together. Your passports with their different addresses will not be helpful, but, as you will see, there are other kinds of evidence that you can gather.

It is unlikely that INZ would accept that you are partners based on how you say you have been living during the most recent 12 months. We have seen on the threads other couples accepted where one or both travel for their work or study, but in those cases, they could show that they had a shared home base and life in common to which they both returned quite regularly and frequently.

Here http://onlineservices.immigration.go...nual/30541.htm are the current requirements for a non-principal applicant for proof of English, or this http://onlineservices.immigration.go...nual/41495.htm if you need to claim the points for her qualifications. You have probably not heard of anything other than IELTS because these rules were only changed towards the end of 2016.

[ratishjob10]

Thanks JandM. Changing my wife's address to my permanent address is going to be a very tedious process at this point as both of us are not living in that city now although my permanent address still remains the family house. So I won't try that at the moment.

But ya, your links have been helpful. I have a medical insurance with her name as a dependent and since our son was born in Dec 2016, we have a few photos together, got to sift through them, but hopefully a photo showing my parents, her parents and both of us with our son. Such a photo will reveal a recent period in our marriage timeline and my parents and her parents together with us should show some family stability.

We had made a holiday trip to Sikkim in March 2016, have those air tickets and a few photos.

I will start a joint bank account with my wife right away as well.

Thanks again for the suggestions.