Boarding agreement & Utility Bill | Partner of a New Zealander Work Visa

[mjharavind]

Hello,

I am a New Zealand Resident Visa holder and my wife is a General Visitor Visa holder. We are arriving in New Zealand this month and we plan to apply for a Partner of a New Zealander Work Visa, with the intention of eventually applying for a Partner of a New Zealander Resident Visa. We have some questions about the requirements and process of these visas:

1. We will be staying in a boarding house with the landlord’s family upstairs and us downstairs. The landlord can provide us with a Boarding House Tenancy Agreement and a letter recognising our relationship. Is this enough to prove that we are living together in a genuine and stable relationship? Or do we need a Residential Tenancy Agreement that covers a separate house?
2. The landlord will include the electricity and wifi costs in our rent payment, so we will not have any utility bills in our name. We are considering a postpaid mobile plan, but they are more expensive than prepay plans. The prepay plans do not send monthly bills by post. Do we need to have at least one utility bill posted to our address?
3. If the work visa is approved for 1 year, we will have to reapply for it again until the resident visa application is approved. Does the second application have the same cost of $860 as the first one? Or is it free of charge?
4. Her GVV expires in November 2024, but her visa says she can only stay for 6 months maximum from the first entry. We are aiming to apply for her work visa at the end of the 4th month after collecting the minimum living together evidence. If the visa approval takes longer than 2 months, making it more than 6 months from her entry to New Zealand, will Immigration New Zealand (INZ) ask her to leave the country and come back as per her visa condition? Or will INZ treat this as an expiry and issue her an interim visa?

We would appreciate any help or advice from anyone who has been in a similar situation.

Thank you.