Approved in Principle !!

[Cord72]

Hi, been a while and a lot has happened for us. ?We left Colorado with ITA in hand at the middle of August. ?Spent a month in Minnesota with my parents while completing the ITA packet and organizing the neccessary documents to go with. ?We had meds and police records done in Colorado already, and so it was just formalizing it all and copies for the file.

Sent ITA off Sept 20th and then travelled to Jamaica for 4 day holiday (LOVED that!) and straight on to Auckland. ?We stayed with friends up north in Leigh, and then went ahead and rented a house in Stanmore Bay on the Whangaparao peninsula. ?I guess we were confident! ?Really, we had bought the tickets so far in advance, we thought it would all be done by this time, and we had to be in Jamaica for a wedding anyways...

Immigration made us provide more evidence of my wife's working history, and they told us most every application does not provide enough of this evidence. ?Letters from previous employers on their letterhead, pay stubs, bank deposits, and federal tax records are all desireable. ?We only had the ability to get tax records sent from Colorado, as we made the first move with only clothing, birth certificates, passports, laptop, etc. ?So we waited until last night to get "approval in principle" form our case officer in London. ?YEAH!!! [smiley=041.gif]

Now we have to send in our passports to London for stamping and authorizing PR. ?
This is expected to take another 2 weeks ?:-[ ?THEN...my wife can start her hairdresser job as offered, and I can look for real work, and the boys can go to school as residents. ?They could have been in school already but it is $1000NZ per child per month for primary school in this particular district. ?They were happy to have some more holiday time.

Other than the weather taking a while to turn (spring was delayed, according to the kiwis it should be nicer already) we are loving it here. ?We had never been before, and our contacts have all done a wonderful job of showing us around enough to get the lay of the land. ?People are very friendly, and they love our American "accent."

So we are to receive PR permit stamps to allow us to be here, as well as PR returning resident visa stamps to allow us to come and go. ?As shown on our approval letter:

"Your Residence Permit remains valid until you leave New Zealand. ?You may want to travel to visit your relatives or to go abroad to have a holiday etc. To be granted another Residence Permit when you return to New Zealand you need a valid Returning Resident's Visa. ?This allows you back into New Zealand as a resident when you return.

When I issue your Residence Permits, I will also issue each of you with a two-year Returning Resident's Visa. ?But it's important to remember that when these expire you will each need to apply for a new Returning Resident's Visas. "

I know I had questions on how that worked, so hopefully that helps someone. ?It has been a solid year of planning and forms and phone calls and e-mails, but I have found the process matches the descriptions on immigration.govt.nz as marked. ?There is no deception in their descriptions, and if it seems to be written in simple language, that is because it is...they are simple if-then scenarios, just a lot of them. ?So if you can make sense of your path through that you can make it happen!

We've been in the country 6 weeks and there is so much to report. ?Check my blog at www.Cord72.wordpress.com with lots of photos as well. ?Links are there on the blog, and feel free to ask questions. ?Maybe I should seek work as an immigration consultant?@@?

Cheers,
Cord

[MotherBear]

Congratulations on the PR in principle, Cord. Won't be long before you're a fully-fledged kiwi.

So good to hear that things are going well for you and you're all settling well in NZ. The future's looking good. Keep us posted.

[Glenda]

That is great news Cord! [smiley=smiley20.gif]

Great blog too! It seems that wherever in the world one comes from, there are plenty of differences to get used to in New Zealand. (I had to laugh at your bug problems and your landlord's silence - every day for the last week I have had to place a sheet over my bed and vacuum crawling and flying ants in the afternoon, after they have fallen from the roof. No amount of insecticide has prevented this annual event. Fortunately, it lasts for only another week or so.)

Sounds like you have copied well with the problems of immigration. All we need now is some nice weather to 'ice the cake'.

:)

[LilAmy]

Hi Cord,

Thats good news about your PR. Keep us posted on how things go. We're planning on going for PR over the next few weeks as well eeek