Waiting for Partnership residency but need help with work visa options

[MagicPizza]

Hello all! I have a bit of a predicament.

I submitted by partnership residency visa application on 8/01/19. It's currently with the Hamilton branch (no CO assigned).

I currently have an essential skills work visa that ends 19/05/19. I'm supposed to leave the country on 4/5/19 for my best friends wedding in the UK. I get back 5 days after the visa expires so I won't get back in to NZ.

I have two options: apply for a new essential skills work visa and make my employer go through the annoyance of trying to find a kiwi for a job I've been doing for over a year now – I would at least get an interim visa if the residency wasn't approved in time but I can't travel on an interim visa so no UK trip for me. This visa will take way longer with the recruitment process.

Apply for a partnership visa and hope it's approved before I leave on May 4th. If it isn't, I can't leave the country and they won't give me a decent interim visa as its a different visa to my current one.

What do you think I should do? I'm mega stressed out about the whole situation.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you

[EGoodhue]

Timing-wise, it seems better to go with the partnership work visa. Essential Skills applications are taking up to 3 months to process at the moment, so by the time you do the advertising/recruitment/labour market test process and put in an application, it won't be processed before your scheduled trip.

Partnership work visa applications are taking a little over 2 months to process at the moment (based on my recent experience representing these types of applications for clients), so if you have all the evidence now, put an application in asap and it should be processed by late April.

Hamilton branch are only just allocating Partnership Residence applications that were lodged at the end of October, so it's likely to be another 4-6 weeks before your Residence application even makes it to an Immigration Officer's desk.

[MagicPizza]

Thanks so much for the info. I was thinking partnership is better too. I'll apply tomorrow 😊

[LParsons1]

I agree with going for the partnership visa. I understand my experience may not be the norm but INZ received my partnership work visa application on 12 February (couriered to Manakau) and it's just been approved today. So quick turnaround times CAN happen though I know it shouldn't be expected.

[EGoodhue]

Putting forward a good quality application (with all the required information and good quality evidence which clearly shows that you meet policy requirements) can certainly influence how quickly it is processed - an Immigration Officer will be able to check through and make a decision quickly on a good quality application over an application that is missing documents or has irrelevant evidence that doesn't really prove anything. But it still comes down to waiting your turn in the long queue of applications that were lodged ahead of yours, which is where all the waiting time happens.

[MagicPizza]

I have all our tenancy info, joint bank accounts, photos, social posts, joint bills, references, certificates and messages from the past 2+ years together and the past 1.5 years we've been living together, so hopefully it'll go through quickly

[MagicPizza]

Also, does anyone know if they count your police certificate as valid from when they receive it? or when the CO actually sees it? I submitted my police cert but it expires in one month so a CO may only see it after the expiry date and make me get a new one

[EGoodhue]

The validity of the police cert counts from the date INZ receive and accept your application - if the PC has expired by the time the CO sees it, it's not technically fair for them to ask you to get a new one, since it's INZ's own slow processing delays that caused the PC to be "out of date" by the time your application finally landed on a CO's desk. In saying that, I have seen CO's ask for new PCs in the past - but usually only when processing has been sooooo slow that it's been almost a year between the application being lodged and it being allocated to a CO.

[MagicPizza]

Awesome! Good to know. I did order a new one today just in case. I don't want to delay the application in any way. They may want it for my residency too even though I lodged it two months ago 😬

[MagicPizza]

My Partnership work visa was approved in 4 days! I've never known them move so fast. They gave me two years, which is more than enough time to approve my (currently submitted) residency application So happy I can go to the UK in a few months. Thanks for all the advice guys!