What would you do?

[zummerzet_lou]

My head is in a complete spin, and would value any opinions, or perhaps some experiences.

Our Residency visa is in the hands of NZIS London, and we are anticipating being assigned a case officer within the next few days. According to the website it takes 1-3 months to make their final decision.

We've accepted an offer on our house, but looks as though we shall be completed by mid to late March, so shall be homeless.

Do we:
Find a rental .. minimum of 6 months, get visas, plan flights etc for end of rental. We shall have all our stuff in storage so shall have to pay storage AND rent

Camp at relatives. Relatives won't take our dog, so have the nightmare situation of having to find a temp home for her

Request passports back from NZIS and just come to NZ, and wait for PR to be processed in our absense. Biggest fear is what if we are rejected?

I'm getting a headache ...

Lou

[nickydwuk]

Oh what a situation Lou. I would be tempted to get my passports back (if poss), get visa/wp & fly now. If you can't get your passports back you have no choice but to rent (if you can find one that takes dogs). We are trying to get some kind of contingency plan sorted now. My job doesn't start until October but we are concerned either the house won't sell before then or sells too soon. If too soon we will be in the same boat. Life's never easy.

[zummerzet_lou]

Thanks Nicky ...

I had everything all planned out, and now it's all be thrown into chaos.

It doesn't help, that I had it in my mind that we'd be leaving about June ... and to leave earlier I'm having a serious panic about saying goodbye to these shores, not to mention friends and family. I'm sure that sounds bonkers, but I need time to get things sorted in my head ...

[MotherBear]

Lou, is there anything around that you could rent in the meantime that's less than a 6-month lease? I'm thinking of a holiday let or maybe you could do a deal with a small hotel for B & B. You might get a special rate for a long term booking, but there's always the concern about whether they'd take dogs. I'd suggest borrowing a caravan from friends and parking it somewhere, but would you all be under one another's feet, especially with little ones? If you decide to go with relatives is there a kennels available nearby where you could board your pooch yet still be near enough to collect her for walks and cuddles?

Alternatively, as Nicky says, get on a plane and get yourselves to NZ. That'll give you the opportunity to scout out the lie of the land and have a little holiday before you settle down somewhere. It would be a gamble but not one that hasn't been made before by umpteen other people. You're obviously in with a good chance of PR or INZ wouldn't be holding your passports. The added bonus of actually being in NZ would be that you could actively search for a job in person. You're much more likely to pick up something while you're there than by applying from the UK. Once you have a job offer and notify INZ, that should give your PR application a bit of a boost.

As for the upset of leaving everyone behind, that's going to come whether you go now or leave it until later. Leaving it until later means that you'll have longer to fret about it, so maybe go for the quick kill and get it over and done with.

Good luck with your decision making.

[ebianca]

Tricky one Lucy.

I would have staying with Family as the last resort- trust me.

We are staying with FIL and his wife- we do get on pretty well but living with them is a whole different story. We have been here 6 weeks now i think and it has been very hard and very uncomfortable at times. Only 5 weeks left to go so we are over half way.
It is a cheap option (usually) as they won't charge as much as a rental which gives chance to save a bit more money but depends what price you put on your sanity.

I personally would try to get the passports- the sooner you get to NZ the sooner you getthe awful and difficult goodbyes out of the way and the sooner you can embark on your new lives together- wherever you end up. Oh and we are going end March too.

[Dawn]

Lou, get thee sen over lass! Life throws these little benders in occasionally deliberately to make you think and exercise your free choice instead of doing merely what's safe, learned behaviour.

Rise to the challenge. You know it's all going to work out don't you. Believe it's up to you to define your life and take control of your actuality. Make it happen the way you want it to.

You will deal with things because you have to. Do what's right for all of you. Take time out to just think objectively and avoid falling into that ever so easy trap of satisfying your egotistical desires i.e. soothing cravings - what'll make you feel better. Sometimes we're not supposed to feel better we're supposed to go through difficult and painful emotions otherwise how are we supposed to grow and learn more about our 'selves'.

You've already made a courageous decision, the hardest decision. That doesn't mean that it's easy from here in, committment raises questions. Don't avoid the questions, be honest with yourself and each other and you'll come out the other end in tact.

Its so exciting Good luck hun!!

[kokopeli]

Hey Lou,

Don't sweat the small stuff. Most things happen for a reason, so (and I know this is easy to say), just go with the flow. In the course of a lifetime, is it really worth getting stresses/harrassed/hung up over a few weeks?

If you've got enough points and everything else was in order with your application (i.e. no pork pies or not proven claims), the laws of logic (or whatever they use at NZIS) suggest that you'll get the blue stickers. If you're sold up, packed up and ready to roll, why wait? Ring NZIS and ask them to copy your passports and send the originals back. We did that so we could go on holiday and sent them back for the visas once we'd been approved.

[zummerzet_lou]

Decision is made ... we're frantically searching for a short-term let.

Our plan A (tay at in-laws minus the dog) got scrapped as the stand-by dog-sitter (my dad), has got a new job which means he'll be working 5 days a week, as opposed to 4 days.

Plan B scrapped - just fly out, as we can't ship our stuff AND I have a huge notice period at work so we're sticking it out in blighty until we either get our visas, or get told we're not getting them.

All being well though, we'll be in New Zealand before Laurens 2nd birthday so we can save a little money on the air fares (24th June) .. and I think we're decided upon Wellington!!

thanks for all your reassuring and calming words,
Lou

[MotherBear]

Good luck with the search, Lou. I'm sure you're doing the right thing as, this way, the move to NZ won't be done in an almighty rush.

[nickydwuk]

Good luck in your search for a let. Hope it's not too long before you get your visa's. I've yet to submit my ITA (medicals at end of March - me exercising!!)