Living Arrangements for Partnership Visa

[xkatiex]

Hi everyone,

My partner and I met in July 2016, and have been doing the long distance thing ever since for various reasons (mostly family commitments). We’re now at a point where he can finally come and join me in NZ. He will be coming here on a visitor visa, and once we have been living together for three to four months, we will apply for a partnership work visa.

My question for you all concerns our living arrangements. As he won’t be able to work probably at least for the first six months and maybe longer, we’re going to find it a real struggle financially as I don’t really earn enough to comfortably support two people paying rent at Auckland prices. Our solution is to live with my parents. We will contribute to food and bills with a weekly board payment, but we will have no formal records in our names.

Will not having a tenancy agreement and joint utilities bills seriously affect our chances of being granted a temporary work visa? We will provide as much other evidence in both our names as we can gather (joint bank account, joint cell phone bill, hire purchase agreements, joint car insurance, etc.), but it seems like proving we are living together is the most important aspect of showing our relationship is genuine and stable, so we want to make sure we do this right. Of course, my parents will sign affidavits stating that we are living there, and we’ll be able to show evidence of payment of board from our bank account, but will this be enough?

If necessary, we can change our plans and rent somewhere instead, but this means that we’ll have to eat a lot of two-minute noodles and probably use up our savings just to survive until he can start working, so we’d rather not if it’s not necessary! However, we want to make sure we have the best shot of getting our application approved, and we’ll do what it takes to make it happen. If anyone has been in a similar situation, I’d love to hear how you coped with this and what the outcome was, but any opinions and advice would be greatly appreciated.

TLDR: Would living (boarding) with my parents instead of renting independently be seriously detrimental to our partnership temporary work visa application?

Thanks in advance for your help!

[JandM]

Many people have managed to be granted their partner-sponsored visa while living with family or friends. Yes, you have to show the financial arrangements underpinning this, and have the affidavits stating that you are occupying a private space within the shared home (particularly, the private shared sleeping accommodation). These old threads https://www.google.com/search?source....0.qnC0FEPokOo have discussion and examples of more evidence you can gather that you are each living at that place, and that you are on record as doing so.

[xkatiex]

Thank you, JandM, for the very helpful advice. Much appreciated.

[AloyNz]

Hi xkatiex
I hope I can help you a little bit but I don't have my visa yet so I'm still trying to get more evidence too.
I'm in a similar situation but Im the one who is joining my partner in New Zealand. We are living with his parents too so we don't have a joint tendency agreement either but they made a house sharing agreement with us and they will write a letter to confirm were living with them and supporting me with a sponsorship. His dad put our names on the power bill and we have a mail redirection from the post shop with all our names on it after we moved to a new house with them a few months ago. I think official letters with both of your names on it are the best like power bills, phone bills, insurances, bank statements, 18+card, ird number to our address etc. I have a 12 month holiday working visa so we have a little bit more time to get evidence of living together but the situation is still very difficult I'm allowed to work but with no nz experience it was hard to find a job and we couldn't get our own place without rental references. Try to get as much as evidence as you can for example if you order stuff online make it on both of your names. and always take a lot of photos we also bought a lot of stuff for our household like bedsheets and furniture everything on our both names and always tried to pay from the joint bank account. It was very hard to get a joint bank account though with a temporary visa we went to asb and bnz but they couldn't open a bank account because of my visa and it took weeks after we went to kiwi bank they finally did it. Just a tip if you don't have your joint account yet. Hope I could help a little bit and hopefully we will get enough evidence

[xkatiex]

Hi AloyNz

Thanks so much for the very practical advice! We'll definitely follow those tips. I must admit I'm a bit worried about having such a short time to gather evidence, but hopefully we can pull it off. Suggestions like yours really help with ideas, and are much appreciated. The bank account thing is definitely good to know - we will try Kiwibank first! Best of luck with getting your visa - I hope it goes well, and do let me know how it works out.

[herodias]

My partner's work and residency visa was approved while living with my parents. In our case, we just explained why we were living with my parents and what our living arrangements were like in our cover letter (e.g. we have our own room and bathroom). My mother wrote a letter supporting our relationship and confirming we lived there, and my father added our names to the power bill alongside his. Then we just included lots of official letters, e.g. joint bank statements and joint phone bill addressed to us, then official letters addressed to us individually. And we had a fortnightly payment set up to my parents for expenses that they could see in the bank statements. We included receipts for stuff we purchased together with out joint bank account like groceries and home stuff. Joint tenancy agreement is just one way to show you live together, but not the only way.

We opened a joint bank account together with ANZ and we took in what we thought was the required evidence, but they were still reluctant to do it. In the end, it was lucky my mother was there with us and was a customer of that bank, because they made her sign that she knew who we were and lived at the address we were providing. Still not sure why, but it may have been because my partner was on a working holiday visa at the time.

[mainlandgay]

For the bank account try selecting a branch that is unlikely to get a lot of foreigners coming through. Also, you can always go to different branches and ask again if you can't open it in one branch.

I used to work for one of the banks and tried to get my partner added to one of my accounts at a branch in Auckland CBD. Their first question was 'what type of visa?'. when he said working holiday, they immediately said he couldn't be added due to his visa despite me working for the bank. Admittedly that branch was located near a lot of the hostels in Auckland so probably had to deal with it a lot and likely knew bank policy very well for working holiday visas. We then went to another branch located outside the city and he was added no issues at all, they didn't ask what type of visa he had and there was no mention that I worked for the bank. They were more interested in how our day was going and where to find the best burgers.