My partner is now approaching three months on a visitor's visa, and has been living with me, and we are now ready to apply for a partnership visa. We have been obsessively collecting evidence, and feel that on the basis of this evidence and our situation, we probably have a reasonably strong case.
But we are confused about the comments in the guide INZ1199 (the Partnership-Based Temporary Visa Guide) regarding temporary stays. The guide states that the applicant has to be intending a "genuine temporary stay". This is also touched on in the form itself where certain sections (medical, criminal record sections) ask questions about how long applicants plan to stay in NZ.
The issue is that like many of the people doing this particular application, she is planning to stay in NZ for the long term. My partner plans to later transition to residence, and then later citizenship. My partner will potentially be staying indefinitely, which clearly violates the policy.
Is my partner supposed to provide some form of words to the effect that this visa will be a "temporary" arrangement until she applies for residence? If so, that's fine, but where does she state this?
Incidentally, we had the happy news recently that my partner is pregnant. I'm a NZ citizen, and therefore (I presume) so is our unborn child. I've joked with her that she should say she'll leave the country: "in 18 or more years, when our youngest child has gone off to university"!