What else do I need?

[1happywoman]

I am hoping to immigrate to New Zealand as soon as possible. I am an American registered nurse, and my partner is a citizen of New Zealand. He is leaving in a few days to go back there, and I follow in a few months. He is taking all of my paperwork with him. I have the application for residence in New Zealand with all the extraneous paperwork they require, along with the Medical and Chest x-ray certificate all filled out, with all the attachments. He has filled out the sponsorship paperwork, and I recently added the paperwork for a temporary work permit. We've been told I should have that in 4-6 weeks. He had another form he filled out that had to do with sponsorship, and we have written up why we are in a genuine and stable relationship. He and I have been together for 12 months, but we don't have the usual shared utility bills and so forth since we have been living with my mom. In the midst of doing all of this and running here and there to get everything done, I have also been working on the paperwork to have my nursing credentials and experience verified by the New Zealand Council of Nursing. (Just so you know, we are both "mature" adults with grown children from previous relationships.

Did I forget anything? Anyone have any ideas about the fees? We are pretty sure we will save about $500NZ by having him submit my paperwork as soon as he gets back home.

[Taffy]

Hi and welcome to the forum!

Sounds like you've got everything sewn up tight! Immigration may ask for some further evidence of your relationship, such as a letter from friends or dated photographs, but apart from that you appear to have everything in place!

[1happywoman]

I have attached a couple of dated photos. We really don't have much evidence that we have been living together. He is a truck driver, and when we first got together, he pretty much lived in the truck, plus the company he worked for paid for a hotel room every third night he was out. His mail was delivered to the work address of the trucking company until a few months ago, when he changed his address to mine. He had to go back to NZ for a couple of months when his dad got very sick, so we have some phone records of the transcontinental calls then. Calls to me were generally from the hotel rooms or pay phones as he saved the minutes on his cell for business calls from the trucking company. I'm hoping the letter and pictures will be sufficient, but if not, we can have some friends write letters. Since we were both working full time, and he was on the road, we didn't have much time for getting out and socializing. I told all of this to someone at the Dept of Immigration and hope she is right that this will probably be acceptable.

[MotherBear]

Hi 1Happywoman and

Here's a breakdown of the immigration fees . I hope you can find what you need on there.

The list that INZ gives out for proving a relationship runs as follows....

Evidence about whether the partnership is genuine and stable* may include but is not limited to, original or certified copies of documents and any other information such as:

a marriage certificate for the parties;
a civil union certificate for the parties;
birth certificates of any children of the parties;
evidence of communication between the parties;
photographs of the parties together;
documents indicating public recognition of the partnership;
evidence of the parties being committed to each other both emotionally and exclusively such as evidence of:
joint decision making and plans together
sharing of parental obligations
sharing of household activities
sharing of companionship/spare time
sharing of leisure and social activities
presentation by the parties to outsiders as a couple.
evidence of being financially interdependent such as evidence of
shared income
joint bank accounts operated reasonably frequently over a reasonable time
joint assets
joint liabilities such as loans or credit to purchase real estate, cars, major home appliances
joint utilities accounts (electricity, gas, water, telephone)
mutually agreed financial arrangements.

.... but, basically, anything you can think of that ties you together at various intervals during the relationship should be acceptable.

[kiwisue]

Since your partner is a New Zealand citizen you would have been better to have applied for Permanent Residency under the Family/Partnership category.



Cheers

Suzanne.