havepartnerwilltravel

Read about a couple called Chris and Helen (in 'Fresh Start' magazine) who went over to NZ on visitor visa, found work in the first week and were in the process of applying for permanent residency. Wondered if anybody had heard how successful they were

or

had thoughts/experiences on how sucessful that approach is?

Radio Ham

I'm having the adventure you describe right now... I've been here job hunting for the last 4 weeks in Auckland and my EOI has just been drawn from the pool.

It's hard to get a job from offshore in my experience, as employers seem to be sceptical of you turning up.. but there are may examples that show it can be done. The reason I'm having this adventure is that I spent 12 months trying to get into the NZ job market from the UK without any success.

Now I'm in NZ on a visitor 6 month visa I'm getting to see and speak to people who would not talk to me from offshore, but there is a constant worry in the back of my mind as the clock ticks... my advice is to avoid this adventure if you can, but if you can afford the time and expense and can manage the uncertainty then the adventure is fun too.

I love being in NZ despite the fact I'm missing a UK heatwave and typing this in a fleece with the heating on.

I'll post to the forum on my experience once I know the real answer to your question....

Jude J

Well me and my husband did it. It was a complete adventure for us too! Arriving in Auckland airport with two kids and a suitcase each with no-where to go, no contacts or anything
It worked a dream for us, but we were lucky as we intended opening a business so the process was slightly different. A couple of hairy moments but not worth retelling them as this was almost 4 years ago and its all new now.

Good luck!

Spacecake799

We will also be starting that adventure around September. We are a family of 5 and maybe you can help with a couple of queries. I assume along with the 6 month visitors visa we also need a return ticket. Were you asked by immigration why you were stopping with your children for so long. They must realise that familys do arrive and not intend returning. Also what did you stay in when you arrived as we will need to be able to look around for work whilst having some sort of base. Thanks in advance for any help you may be able to give.
carole.

Jude J

Hi Carole,

Yes we did have a return ticket, we had one that was open for a year. On arrival they did ask us how long we were planning to stay and my husband told them the truth, that we were hoping to open a business but if it didn't work we would be leaving before the visitor visa ran out. I dont know if we just got lucky looking back on it as it was remarkably easy! I think they did say that we couldn't overstay our visa and then just stamped it! I'm sure there are people arriving with no intention of going back but maybe cos we were a family it is a bit different? I imagine it is quite difficult to get kids into school and support them without working or only earning cash in hand for odd jobs.

We didn't have a hotel booked or anything, so we went straight to the airport information and booked a place near the airport for two nights. They picked us up in the hotel van and that was it, our first look at our new home country! Have you been before? If not, dont be too alarmed at the residential areas around the airport as we were, it isn't all like that!
The next day we hired a car and went exploring. We had done a little research before leaving UK and I wanted to head for the North Shore to check it out so that's what we did.
After driving around the East Coast Bays area we decided that this is where we wanted to live for the next while so we checked out some rental homes.
We moved from the hotel after the first two nights and stayed in a flat in a holiday park for a week and by the end of the week we had found a house to rent.

Again, this was so easy! We had no references or anything to give the landlord or agent. We just met with the landlord and gave proof of my husbands UK salary, paid the bond and months rent in advance and moved in. It was furnished too so that was a bonus.

Our daughter, 13 at the time, went to intermediate school for which we had to pay a foreign student fee, I cant remember how much is was but I can ask my husband. We had to pay this until we got the student visa which we got once my husband got a work permit. Our son aged 15 at the time went to college and for some reason they didn't charge the fee.

I am glad we settled here. Almost 4 years after arriving we are still living in the same rented house! It is beautiful with views over the ocean and we couldn't afford to buy one with views like it! We are house hunting at the moment and expect to pay about $450,000 for a 4 bedroom house.

Where are you thinking of living? How old are your children?

Spacecake799

Hi,
Thanks for the tips. Any advice is always useful. Its great to hear something possitive from someone whos taken this route. Weve never been to nz, and have researched as much as you can when you don't know where your going. We will arrive in Auckland i guess, my husband works in IT and so we will be governed by where he can get a job. It would be nice to have a choice but i really think our choice will be Auckland or Wellington. How did your children settle into school? and did you find the schools just by looking around? My kids are 14, 12 and 7. There really excited but this novelty is sure to wear off. I did'nt think they could go to school until hubby had a work permit, so thats really interesting. Weve just sold our house so were looking forward to our adventure around september. Thanks for any help.
carole

bookemjano

Hi, this might have been us? The kids are called Chris and Helen, but then again maybe it was another couple you're thinking of.

We came over on visitors visas, got jobs, applied for and got work visas, and submitted for residency. Still waiting on a decision, but got told that as our work visas don't expire until February 07 we're not a priority and therefore won't be fast tracked. People who are outside the country and are waiting on a residency decision before they enter the country get priority fast tracking if they've got jobs to come to.

To get into the country we got one way tickets to NZ, then one way tickets to Sydney, which we successfully rearranged after 4 months at a charge of $50 per ticket. There were no questions asked about this, such as whether we were here to look for work or anything, they just saw we had the tickets to leave the country exactly six months after arrival and were fine with it. Just make sure that if you do it this way you can use the exit tickets in some productive way.

We certainly found applying for residency easier here - the immigration office in Christchurch is always available to answer questions, you have your medical done by your GP and it's cheaper to do it all from here. Immigration are concerned about two things only as far as we can see - 1. can you contribute, and 2. can you settle. We felt that by getting work, which we're both still in, and proving we can live on our wages/get involved in our community/have the kids happy at school more than demonstrated our ability to do both.

I'm not saying it's all plain sailing, we've had a few bumpy spots, but doing it this way also proved to us that we could contribute and settle, rather than get residency, leave the UK, then feel we HAD to stay, whatever happened. We viewed this as a 'suck it and see' experiment and luckily for us, it's working out. It might not be the right way for everyone, but it was certainly the way we needed to do it.

Jan

Jude J

Hi

Yes, they settled extremely well, I think that although there are plenty of English kids here the accent is still a bit of a novelty and they both made friends straight away. With our daughter who was going to intermediate school we just applied for the one in our zone but with the oldest going to college we looked at the one in our zone which is one of the best and the largest schools in the country and didn't like it due to its size. The other college seemed so much better and it was all of our choice that he go there so we were pleased that they took kids from out of the zone but also didn't charge a foreign student fee which the other college did. Now we have been here a while we find out that the college actually had a bit of a bad name in the past but has made several improvements, both our kids are at the college and are doing well and I have found no problem with it at all.

I have not been to Wellington yet but have heard plenty of good things about it, apart from the colder climate, apparently it gets very windy down there!

Auckland is nice, I'm sure you've heard your fair share of good and bad stories about living here. One thing I found hard to get used to is the fact that there is hardly anything outside the major cities apart from very small townships. I lived in Portsmouth before coming here and have lived in a few other cities in UK you get used to driving out of your own town or city and being in another one minutes later. But once you get your head round it, it becomes part of the charm of this country. We have got very good now at preparing for days out, we dont presume anymore that we can get food and drinks somewhere as quite often this isn't the case! My sister, brother-in-law and 3 neices were here in February for a holiday and they loved the fact that a day out at the beach was just that, no arcades or rides to spend money on! My oldest niece by the way is 7 and she really wanted to move here!

uk+kiwi

Hello! Good story. I'm guessing that your kids go to Long Bay College and that it was Rangi that you decided against? My hubbie went to Rangi but I agree with you that it is too big now. It has always had a strong reputation though and continues to get impressive results I believe. Does Long Bay still have more of a reputation for the arts? What is your impression?

In UK at the moment, but likely to move to NZ at some point. Probably the North Shore also but not sure as would want space. However also not sure when the right time for us is in terms of kids etc.

Batty

Hi

I got my residency here. I'm married to a Kiwi so don't know anything about the EOI or all the other things you've got to go through so can't help on that score. But the medical was easy peasy, I got a work permit through my PR application and although it did take longer than it would have done if I'd applied before I got here - it really was fairly stress free. Have to say though - customs was fairly nerve wracking. Hubby had gone through the NZ line and was waiting on the other side for me with the luggage. He was standing right behind the customs officer waving at me and I'm telling her that I'm only here to visit my inlaws - I'm SUCH a bad liar, she KNEW too

Make sure you get your Police Cert before you leave though - you dont' want unnecessary holdups when you get here.

We live on the North Shore but in Glenfield which is inland, and more importantly for us, cheaper. We don't have school going kids so zoning wasn't an issue for us. We've got a 814m² section that isn't cross/sub/anything else leased - it's all OURS

bookemjano

Yes you can! We just found out we got ours. Nine months after arriving, but a lot of that delay was us sorting ourselves out and nothing to do with Immigration, and the fact that some of our information had to be redone as it didn't meet the criteria - eg missing dates on employer evidence, etc. We're still nursing hangovers from getting the news on Thursday afternoon.

Woodlea

Good one Jan- gonna be a Kiwi now.... I got a job offer today from a NZ company so I'm a bit pished now too! Even got a bloke coming round to look at the house tomorrow and its only been on the market since Thursday but this is Scotland so it might take some time. I'm a bit concerned about all the snow you're having at the moment - I want away from that stuff...

Jude J

Yep!! Rangi still has a good reputation but I have also heard some not so good stories from my kids friends who go there. It certainly has plenty of money and excellent sports facilities due to the large amount of foreign fee paying students. If you excell in subjects you will get noticed and do very well but it is easy for your average student to go un-noticed in a school of that size.
Both my kids are doing well at Long Bay. They each have won awards for excelling in different subjects and two years ago when my daughter was having a hard time personally and her school work suffered the teachers were on to it straight away and she had some great help.

There are still houses with land to be had on the North Shore but I agree that it is getting very popular and therefore new estates are springing up all over. Albany is expanding rapidly, just since I have been here (almost 4 years) it seems to have doubled in size!

Woodlea, I wouldn't be too concerned about the huge snowfall unless you plan living on the South Island. The snow wouldn't bother me as much as not having any power for over a week
It did look stunning on the news tho!

Woodlea

Woodlea, I wouldn't be too concerned about the huge snowfall unless you plan living on the South Island. The snow wouldn't bother me as much as not having any power for over a week
It did look stunning on the news tho![/QUOTE]

We are moving to the South Island Jude J, but we're used to the snow, and the kids thought they wouldn't see it again apart from in the mountains so they're pleased. I've got a generator and I'm bringing it - but a week without power is a bit excessive...

uk+kiwi

That is so good to hear. Sometimes there is only so much parents can do to help their own children so it's fantastic to hear that the school helped out.