pinkicemaiden

Hi,

I have been in NZ on a work to residence visa and am planning on applying for residency at the end of the year. I was just wondering if anyone has done this recently and how long it takes for the residency to get through? I cannot find information regarding the time frame for this specific route online.
Also according to the immigration website it states I may not have to provide medical certificates if these were submitted within the last 3 years. As all the police and health checks etc were done 2 years ago at the time of the initial WTR application do these all have to be done again??

Any info from anyone who has bben through this process would be gratefully recieved.

Many thanks

moonie2011

Hi we put ours in on 28th May and apart from being asked to submit some more documents, which we forgot, have heard nothing since. I will let you know when we hear

pinkicemaiden

Thanks for the reply and it would be great if you could keep me posted. Fingers crossed it comes through soon for you

MrsFychan

on the immigration site it states "Work to Residence

If you were issued a Work to Residence Visa (Job Search Visa) offshore under the Skilled Migrant Category and have successfully found skilled employment in the lower North Island please send a copy of your employment contract and job description to the Wellington Branch. Your documents will be allocated to an Immigration Officer and your Skilled Migrant application will continued to be processed. We will endeavour to make the final decision within 2 months of receiving your documents."

Processing times

Tom H

Processing times

We handed in our application on the 21st October 2013 after we had the 2 years. We then had to get a medical for our boy (doesn't take long to find out his records since he was born here but hey ho) and then everything was finalised and sorted on the 28th October.

Our WTR visas expired on the 14th April

We got our approval around 2 to 3 weeks I think before deadline date. We were asked to fill an application for an extension since they were concerned they might not get it finalised in time

If your wtr visa was through an accredited employer - expect it to go through till the end.

pinkicemaiden

Thanks Mrs Fychan. I had seen this link on the immigration website but it seems to specifically relate to employment in the lower north Island and I am in Auckland. There didn't seem to be any processing info about other areas and I wondered if anyone had any recent experience of the application process. Hopefully the 2month processing time applies to other offices too

pinkicemaiden

Thanks Tom,

That seems such a long time... especially considering I don't really need to supply any new information as such but I guess its out of my hands!

Did they have your passports for the whole time? I will be applying in November but may need to return to the UK in the february but assuming I can get my passport back if need be?

MrsFychan

I would state in application that you intend to be out of the country and give dates, they can extend the passport conditions to allow you fly in and back in again

moonie2011

They sent our passports back after a week or so. They said we need to send them back in when visas are approved to they can put the stickers in.

moonie2011

Whoop whoop, just got the email, our residency visas are approved, we can stay so about 10 weeks time scale

Tom H

Yay, congrats!!!

5 more years before you become a citizen and have the option to bugger off to beautiful weather such as Perth or Darwin

pinkicemaiden

Thanks for the update and glad to hear that they came through relatively quickly for you!