Police Certificate

[culpable]

Hi there

It's the time again for visas apps, and I'm just wanting a little bit of clarification on the part about police certificates in the temporary partnership visa.

You must provide police certificates from your country of citizenship and any country you have lived in for five years or more since the age of 17 if you plan to be in New Zealand for 24 months or longer (including any time you have already spent in New Zealand), and, either you have not provided police certificates to Immigration New Zealand with a previous visa application, or you have provided police certificates to Immigration New Zealand but those certificates were issued more than 24 months ago.

D8 You do not have to provide police certificates if: you are not intending to be in New Zealand for 24 months or longer, or you have already provided police certificates to Immigration New Zealand with a previous visa application and those police certificates were issued less than 24 months ago.

What I want to be sure on is when I read that, I read it as so: it looks at how long you have stayed in NZ, then adds that onto how long you plan on staying? It doesn't actually look at time on visas?

For example, my partner spent about 6 weeks on a visitor visa before temporary partnership visa was granted, he got it 6 months, then another year, during the year he has gone back to Argentina for 2 months, then returned, so even accounting for time spent in NZ on the visitor visa, he still won't have been in NZ a total of 18 months when we apply for the visa, therefore cannot hit 24 months even with the another visa of 6 months.

We're still not sure what our plan is after the temporary visa. He misses home, so us going to Argentina could be on the cards..

Basically, it seems to me that a police certificate isn't necessary at present, as he's not hitting 24 months planned or staying in NZ at present, but I don't want to misinterpet this and have the visa declined.

[JandM]

Inconvenient though it may be, I don't think it will work out like you're hoping. INZ won't be thinking, 'Oh, he went out of the country for two months, so take that off the total,' but rather WILL simply look at the life of the visas, and add them up. Also, they tend to make assumptions based on common patterns of behaviour, rather than considering the individual - we know from experience that people who have had one partner-sponsored temporary work visa, then applied for another, thinking, rather like you with your police certificates, that they wouldn't need a medical because this second visa wouldn't take them over 24 months, have been told that they must supply one after all. INZ thinking seems to be that people going for a further visa are quite LIKELY to apply for residence afterwards and stay longer, regardless of what the applicants tell them about their plans, so the "get it done" order is given.

[culpable]

So if I wrote a letter explaining my reasoning it wouldn't change anything? or if I applied without one based on that thinking, might they request the police certificate rather than flat out declining the application?

[culpable]

We are trying to get a police cert through the Argentine embassy for the doubts, but for whatever reason, are waiting two weeks for an email response to be booked into an appointment which they can't do on the phone or face to face.. looking through old threads, is there some kind of waiver we can apply for if need be?

[JandM]

https://www.immigration.govt.nz/opsm....htm?35052.htm See A5.10. But notice, there IS information about how to get an Argentinian police check https://www.immigration.govt.nz/new-...e-certificates.

I don't think INZ would flat-out decline the application if he sent it off without the certificate, but are likely to reply saying it's missing. There's nothing to stop you trying to explain, and it might work. But it may not.

As in A5.10, there's a procedure for doing without a certificate if there is proof that it has been impossible to obtain, but they won't allow that to be used just because the process is awkward or takes a long time.

[culpable]

Cool, thank you for your advice. It seems like it depends on the officer, but we will see and try and update this thread with how it goes

[culpable]

Application is in and we have a number and stuff... now to wait and see if our officer is going to request a police certificate or not.

[culpable]

Never got requested the certificate, visa was approved within a week