Originally Posted by
JandM
Assessing is what the CO does to all the evidence in the case, verifying that everything is true, and meets the requirements for each point on the checklist.
After the CO has done all that, which can take several months, because a lot of time, they have to wait for replies from third parties (e.g., your university, to say you really did attend that course, etc.), s/he decides on what outcome to recommend on the case. Then it gets passed to another official for second person checking (2pc).
The 2pc official looks over everything the CO has done on the case, checking for any errors or omissions, checking that correct procedure has been followed, and making sure there is no chance for corruption. When the 2pc official is satisfied, the case is passed back to the CO to get clerks to notify the applicant of the result.
Thank you so much for your reply. I am going for a partnership resident visa. We bought a house together and have bank and utilities in both of our names. We have been living together in New Zealand since December 2016 and have lots of pictures, messages, texts and emails that we included in the application. So, hopefully it will be and easy to verify and it won't take to much longer =)