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Thread: HELP- My partner's residence will be in process soon but her temporary visa will expire soon (in 3 months)

  1. #1
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    Default HELP- My partner's residence will be in process soon but her temporary visa will expire soon (in 3 months)

    HI ladies and gents,

    I am in a bad situation right now with my partner ability to stay legally in NZ without being deported.

    My partner got granted a 2 year New Zealand work visa when we were in South Africa nearly 2 years ago. That work visa will expire in a few months (February 2020) and we're now at 12th November 2019.
    I am currently working through to apply for a Residence Visa for my partner but understand this process will take months to complete and almost certainly go over the February 2020 expiry date of her current Work Visa.

    The issue i have is how do i keep my partner in the country (legally of course) until her Residence Visa is decided? I have heard of applying for a new work visa extension which will most likely be another 12 months but when applying for Residence, our passports will be submitted with the application so how can we apply for the work visa extension when our passports are with INZ in the Residence Visa application.
    Also how long will it take for Immigration New Zealand to process a work visa knowing that my partners existing work visa expires in 3 months?

    Our medical exam results are still valid and we have fresh police clearances completed. All other evidence we have so no issues there.

    I am very worried. Yes we applied late for her Residence and should have done that earlier but we were not aware of the long process times for the Residence Visas here assuming it may take a few weeks like it did for my partner to get her Work Visa when she applied when we were in South Africa.

    Any help will be highly appreciated.

    Regards,

  2. #2
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    Your partner will need to submit an application for a further Work Visa in order to legally remain in New Zealand while the Resident Visa application is under consideration.

    If the existing Work Visa expires, and an application for a further temporary visa (i.e. Visitor, Work or Student Visa) is still under consideration, INZ will almost always automatically issue an Interim Visa to keep your partner legally in New Zealand until a decision on the further temporary visa is reached. Note that an Interim Visa is not issued in the case of a temporary visa expiring while a Resident Visa is under consideration; hence, the likely need to submit an application for a further Work Visa (given current processing times, the current Work Visa will likely expire before a decision is made on the Resident Visa).

    To quote INZ themselves on the Interim Visa factsheet (linked above): "If you’ve applied for a resident visa, and you think your visa may expire before we make a decision about your residence application, you should apply for a temporary visa too. That way you’ll be eligible for an interim visa if you need one." This nicely summarizes what you and your partner will likely need to do.

    You will not need to submit your physical passport with either application if applying onshore: a certified copy of the biodata page is sufficient. For most onshore applications, INZ will have already sighted the passport itself, so they often will deem it unnecessary to sight it again. If they do decide that they need to physically verify your passport, your case officer will let you know -- but from my own experience, this happens after the case officer makes the decision to approve the application (and said decision has gone through the second-person quality control check). You would receive an "Approved in Principle" letter stating that you will need to submit your passport before your visa will be formally issued. (This happened with our Resident Visa application as we renewed one of the passports while the application was under way, and INZ issued an AIP stating that, for the visa to be issued in the new passport, it needed to be submitted -- and the visa was issued days after they received it.)

    So, for us, the process looked like this:

    1. Resident Visa application submitted
    2. Partner needed to renew her UK passport
    3. Case officer assigned, began working through the application
    4. Partner received her new UK passport and let case officer know (sending through a certified copy)
    5. Case officer completed her evaluation and sent it to second person checking
    6. Second person checking completed
    7. Approved in Principle letter issued; application approved but partner would need to send through new passport for physical verification before visa would be issued
    8. Passport sent (later that same day!)
    9. Visa issued and passport returned


    If applying from South Africa, you will almost certainly have to submit your passport to the Visa Application Centre in Pretoria (blame fraudulent passports issued by corrupt officials at the Department of Home Affairs for this), but my experience with them is that they are quick about physical passport verification, and (if instructed to return your passport via courier) will do so the next business day.
    Last edited by Kelerei; 12th November 2019 at 02:46 PM.

  3. #3
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kelerei View Post
    Your partner will need to submit an application for a further Work Visa in order to legally remain in New Zealand while the Resident Visa application is under consideration.

    If the existing Work Visa expires, and an application for a further temporary visa (i.e. Visitor, Work or Student Visa) is still under consideration, INZ will almost always automatically issue an Interim Visa to keep your partner legally in New Zealand until a decision on the further temporary visa is reached. Note that an Interim Visa is not issued in the case of a temporary visa expiring while a Resident Visa is under consideration; hence, the likely need to submit an application for a further Work Visa (given current processing times, the current Work Visa will likely expire before a decision is made on the Resident Visa).

    To quote INZ themselves on the Interim Visa factsheet (linked above): "If you’ve applied for a resident visa, and you think your visa may expire before we make a decision about your residence application, you should apply for a temporary visa too. That way you’ll be eligible for an interim visa if you need one." This nicely summarizes what you and your partner will likely need to do.

    You will not need to submit your physical passport with either application if applying onshore: a certified copy of the biodata page is sufficient. For most onshore applications, INZ will have already sighted the passport itself, so they often will deem it unnecessary to sight it again. If they do decide that they need to physically verify your passport, your case officer will let you know -- but from my own experience, this happens after the case officer makes the decision to approve the application (and said decision has gone through the second-person quality control check). You would receive an "Approved in Principle" letter stating that you will need to submit your passport before your visa will be formally issued. (This happened with our Resident Visa application as we renewed one of the passports while the application was under way, and INZ issued an AIP stating that, for the visa to be issued in the new passport, it needed to be submitted -- and the visa was issued days after they received it.)

    So, for us, the process looked like this:

    1. Resident Visa application submitted
    2. Partner needed to renew her UK passport
    3. Case officer assigned, began working through the application
    4. Partner received her new UK passport and let case officer know (sending through a certified copy)
    5. Case officer completed her evaluation and sent it to second person checking
    6. Second person checking completed
    7. Approved in Principle letter issued; application approved but partner would need to send through new passport for physical verification before visa would be issued
    8. Passport sent (later that same day!)
    9. Visa issued and passport returned


    If applying from South Africa, you will almost certainly have to submit your passport to the Visa Application Centre in Pretoria (blame fraudulent passports issued by corrupt officials at the Department of Home Affairs for this), but my experience with them is that they are quick about physical passport verification, and (if instructed to return your passport via courier) will do so the next business day.
    Hi Kelerei,

    I know it's a bit late but I have read your post and appreciate the advice. We are going to apply for the same work visa this week (Partner of a New Zealander Work Visa) that we applied for when back in South Africa for my partner of 6 years.

    The Residence visa will be handled by our Immigration adviser. I'm assuming the application for the above Partner of New Zealander work visa should be a fairly quick process anyways since INZ already have our details like Medical Exam and Birth Certificates on file so no need to supply those but we have these records anyways if INZ decides they need it again.

    If we do online application, do you know how long it takes for INZ to issue the interim visa? Or is that done as a soon as your application is submitted online?

  4. #4
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    Quote Originally Posted by icpee View Post
    If we do online application, do you know how long it takes for INZ to issue the interim visa? Or is that done as a soon as your application is submitted online?
    Interim Visas are automatically issued by INZ. In my case, it was issued (and I received notification thereof) 7 days before my previous temporary visa was due to expire (and rather amusingly, the new temporary visa was granted the next day!). Your mileage may vary.

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kelerei View Post
    Interim Visas are automatically issued by INZ. In my case, it was issued (and I received notification thereof) 7 days before my previous temporary visa was due to expire (and rather amusingly, the new temporary visa was granted the next day!). Your mileage may vary.
    In my case, interim visa was issued 7 days before expiry, but I did not receive any mail or update about that, though I could see it in the status page. So, if you don't receive any mail from them, keep an eye on your INZ status page https://onlineservices.immigration.govt.nz/

  6. #6
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    Ah I see. Thank you for the responses.

    Well my partner's visa expires next month in February and we will be submitting the documents this week Friday 17th January so we should be in time i guess.

    At the moment i'm gathering so much evidence, almost 6 years worth, to apply for this visa. I am in the mindset of providing way more evidence that the bare minimum.

    We are doing the online application so that helps.

  7. #7
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    I just remembered something important...

    Is your partner on a Partner of a New Zealander Work Visa, and is applying for a further Partner of a New Zealander Work Visa (which may be the case if you hold a Resident Visa yourself)? If so, there's an absolute 2 year limit that one can be on a Partner of a New Zealander Work Visa (see WF2.1(a)). That said, evidence on this forum has indicated that INZ has recently been waiving this restriction due to their own processing delays, but only if a prior application for a Partner of a New Zealander Resident Visa is in progress (I think it's been posted in this thread somewhere, and I'm sure JandM is about to come along and link the exact post, because my own search skills are failing this morning!). Given all of this, I've seen people on this forum submit applications for the "bridging" Partner of a New Zealander Work Visa, and the Partner of a New Zealander Resident Visa, simultaneously so that INZ may see the Resident Visa application in the system and waive WF2.1(a).

    If you think that this applies to you, then I strongly recommend bringing this to the attention of the LIA who you already said is handling your partner's Partner of a New Zealander Resident Visa application. There definitely aren't official instructions allowing for an extension to the 2 year period (that I know of, anyway), so if granted, this would be entirely at INZ's discretion. You may well be advised that your partner would have to apply for an employment-specific Work Visa instead (i.e. Essential Skills) -- but this has the caveat that any Interim Visa would effectively have Visitor Visa conditions disallowing work (due to applying for a different type of Work Visa, see I.20).

    If your partner is on a Partner on a Worker Work Visa though, this probably won't be an issue, as there isn't any such provision in those instructions (WF3.1).

    EDIT: The 2 year limit is also mentioned on the Partner of a New Zealander Work Visa factsheet. Quote: "You can only have this visa for 2 years, but before it expires you can apply for residence based on your partnership."
    Last edited by Kelerei; 15th January 2020 at 11:36 AM.

  8. #8
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    We successfully got the Partner of a New Zealander Work Visa approved 2 years ago for my partner. Yes my partner's visa was valid for 2 years and the visa expires this February and so we want to apply again for the same visa which is Partner of a New Zealander Work Visa.

    Is this the correct step? I'm actually worried now we may be applying for the wrong visa and may get declined.

    Adding to my post:

    EDIT: The 2 year limit is also mentioned on the Partner of a New Zealander Work Visa factsheet. Quote: "You can only have this visa for 2 years, but before it expires you can apply for residence based on your partnership."

    This much i read as well but we only applied for the 'Residence Based on Partnership' this month realislically there is no way INZ will approve this visa within the next month which is why we want to apply for the 'Partner of a New Zealander Work Visa' so my partner is allowed to be legally in the country and gives enough time for INZ to decide on the Residence application.

    I'm now unsure if we are doing the right thing because of the time limit we have. We made a mistake by leaving this application too late.
    Our Immigration Advisor is handling the Residence Visa application and we have not approached them to also do the visa application to extend the work visa so my partner remains in the country legally until INZ decides on the Residence Visa. We done this because it costs too much and we figured we can handle this Partner of a New Zealander Work visa on our own since we successfully applied for one back in South Africa.
    Issue is now i'm unsure if re-applying for the same visa will even be considered. I have not looked at any other visa because i thought this was the right one to apply for --> Partnership of New Zealander Work Visa

    According to the INZ site:
    You must leave New Zealand before your visa expires
    If you want to stay longer, you can apply for residence as the partner of a New Zealand citizen or resident.


    But they do not mention what options you have if you apply a few weeks or month before the expiry date. I doubt they approve Residence Visa's in a matter of days or a few weeks.
    Last edited by icpee; 15th January 2020 at 12:17 PM. Reason: add more information

  9. #9
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    As mentioned by Kelerei above, INZ granting a third partner-sponsored work visa is mentioned on this page https://www.enz.org/forum/showthread.php?t=55547&page=8, from post #72 onwards. This has happened for so many forum-members over recent years, both getting a third one-year visa, and getting another one-year following on from a two-year one, that there doesn't seem to be any question that INZ will do it.

    In your position, icpee, I don't see that you could have done anything very differently. It's not the fault of any one applicant that INZ staff are struggling at the moment to meet what used to be considered normal time-scales for processing. In your position, I would get the application for another partner of a New Zealander work visa in, along with the Partner of a New Zealander Residence visa, as soon as possible, with a covering letter pointing out why you feel the need to ask for the third year's work visa. (If you find you have to involve the LIA with the work visa, or at least, liaise with him/her over the submission, then maybe it's time to bite the bullet and get it done.) I haven't heard of anyone getting asked to leave the country because of INZ's backlog.

  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by JandM View Post
    As mentioned by Kelerei above, INZ granting a third partner-sponsored work visa is mentioned on this page https://www.enz.org/forum/showthread.php?t=55547&page=8, from post #72 onwards. This has happened for so many forum-members over recent years, both getting a third one-year visa, and getting another one-year following on from a two-year one, that there doesn't seem to be any question that INZ will do it.

    In your position, icpee, I don't see that you could have done anything very differently. It's not the fault of any one applicant that INZ staff are struggling at the moment to meet what used to be considered normal time-scales for processing. In your position, I would get the application for another partner of a New Zealander work visa in, along with the Partner of a New Zealander Residence visa, as soon as possible, with a covering letter pointing out why you feel the need to ask for the third year's work visa. (If you find you have to involve the LIA with the work visa, or at least, liaise with him/her over the submission, then maybe it's time to bite the bullet and get it done.) I haven't heard of anyone getting asked to leave the country because of INZ's backlog.
    Noted and that answers all my questions and puts me at ease.
    I must say thank you, thank you and god bless to you and Kelerei from the bottom of my heart.

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