Originally Posted by
g_rose_m
Hi,
Hope everyone is doing well.
I am planning ahead for submittion of the EOI. I am on my open work visa and my wife is on her work visa based on partnership.
If I want to claim points for my partner's qualification is there any requirement? Do we have to live together in NZ for 12 months? We previously lived together for more than a year in our home country.
TIA
There's a generic instruction for
all residence class visas that partners included on any Resident Visa application must meet the same partnership criteria as someone applying for a Partner of a New Zealander Resident Visa (
R2.1.15 in the ops manual, which in turn references the partnership instructions
F2.10.1 and
F2.15). Your partnership must therefore be assessed as genuine and stable as per Partner of a New Zealander Resident Visa instructions (even though this is an SMC application), otherwise your partner will not be granted a Resident Visa, and your partner's attributes (e.g. your partner's qualifications) will not be considered when assessing your own eligibility; see
R2.1.15.1.
However, note that the requirement that the partners be living together for 12 months or more is not country specific (and neither is it for temporary visas --- my partner got her Partner of a Worker Work Visa while I was onshore having received a job offer on my "look, see, decide" trip and her having never been in New Zealand in her life). Most people on this forum meet their partners (or get into arranged marriages) in New Zealand, which can make it appear from reading past threads as if the partners must live together in New Zealand to be eligible, but the living together can be in any country.