Ria_

Have sent my passport off to the VAC in London, and will hopefully receive it within the next couple of weeks

This should allow my partner and I 12 months to move. But just wondering when is the best time to be moving?

Ideally, I was thinking the very beginning of December, but I'm aware that everything just kinda shuts down over Christmas and was wondering how difficult it is this time of year to find work/accommodation.

• My partner's family live in Wellington, and have said that we are welcome to stay in their spare room until we find our feet.
• Really, we want to be renting a 2 bedroom home, but understand that we may have to downgrade from our current living conditions to a 1 bedroom flat for a while, so we may be competing with students (who move out in November, and are flatsearching in January/February?)
• I'll be looking for work ahead of us moving.
• I had December in mind, as I usually get my Xmas bonus end of November.

Is there anything else that we should be considering? Would late November to early December be feasible, or is it still too close to Christmas for new job/home.

Just thinking we'd like to book our flights before sorting everything else out, so that we have a definitive date to work with.

simonsi

Depends entirely what work you are after, arriving late Nov/early Dec I'd expect only seasonal work if that to be available, most employers go off the boil on hiring from October and it doesn't really pick up until mid-Feb in my experience but again, it depends entirely what work you are skilled for.

Be wary of expecting to be in work within weeks of arriving though, typically if you aren't hired into a role before arriving it can take months once you are here.

MrsFychan

finding good rental accommodation is very difficult in Wellington, maybe get the inlaws to speak to agents for you and have them look around any that come up, that way least the agents know about you.
Jobs - depends on what you do, as already said. Have a look on trademe and seek to see what is out there for your occupations.

as you are coming over to family you are going to better placed than most so come over when things in the UK have been finalised.

Ria_

I work in search engine optimisation, and have a couple of contacts in the Wellington industry. I'm quite happy to take whatever seasonal/part-time work I can find though until I get myself back onto the ladder. Hoping to be able to apply for work and be interviewed via Skype whilst in the UK but I don't expect anything.

Thanks for the tip about letting agents, will definitely ask them. They're very eager to get us there (they probably want their son back...) and help with settling us in, so I can imagine they'd be happy to speak to agents on our behalf and help us look prior to our arrival.

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Note to admin: Sorry! I didn't realise that I had made this thread on the Immigration board! Thought I was making it in the parent category.