Hello,
With the guidance from this forum, I submitted my residency application at the end of August 2017. I received my original documents back, and now the wait begins.
My current working holiday visa runs out on december 24th this year, so I am planning ahead as to what I need to do to stay legally in NZ so I can continue working until (fingers crossed) my residency application is approved.
I could extend my working holiday visa for a second year, which would give me another year in the country, but would only allow me to work until March 2018, because I started work in March 2017.
I have heard the other option is a bridging visa, but I can't find out much about this? Is this something that you can only apply for when a case officer is assigned to you? That could take quite a while to be assigned one given their wait times at the minute, so if that's the case I will need to potentially extend my working holiday visa and then also get a bridging visa - which will get costly I'm sure...
I'm just trying to figure out, with the timings of my residency application (impossible to guess, but I'm assuming I will most definitely not have it by the time my current visa expires at the end of Dec this year), what the best course of action is to ensure I'm able to stay working in New Zealand until I hear about the residency application.
Many thanks for any advice!