Re: Dipping my toe in :)
 

Can't help ref jobs as I'm in the UK but I just wanted to say how nice we thought Rotorua was. We had expected it to be naff to be honest, but were pleasantly surprised. It had lots of lovely countryside around, the obvious natural attractions and all the people we met were lovely and it didn't feel particularly isolated. We came away thinking we'd be happy to live there actually; especially given the cost of house v Auckland. We may have been lucky with the time of year (August), but smell wasn't an issue. Not sure how the sulphur would be at other times of the year and what the effect would be if you had any chest problems.

Re: Dipping my toe in :)
 

We were in Rotorua during a tropical cyclone and there was so much rain that everywhere was steaming and bubbling. Storm drains, reserves in the city, side of the road, everywhere. It was pretty sulphurous as well.

I think you have to live in a place for at least a full year before you get an idea of what it is really like.

We do like Rotorua, though. :thumbsup:

Re: Dipping my toe in :)
 

Just a little update and thanks again for all the replies. We have been in contact via email with someone looking for Kanya's skills and there may be a chance of a job offer when we arrive there for her so fingers crossed that may be our way of securing visa's but i need to look how i will be able to get one if my wife does the application. Still unsure if we are going to arrive on holiday visas and take it from there or start the application from the UK.

We are going to visit a New Zealand emigration seminar this Sunday in Manchester and hopefully this will also give us a better picture of the process which we need to do going forward. We cannot really afford to be paying massive fees to immigration companies but hopefully we can find enough info to sort it out ourselves.

I was beginning to feel that we were not getting anywhere but this news has given me the incentive to push on with our plans and make a fresh start in New Zealand.

Re: Dipping my toe in :)
 

which is fine if you earn a pretty good wage, if not your fuel bill (around $160 a week at todays fuel price based on 8litres/100km)
will be crippling. Rotorua - Hamilton is about 110km - hour and half drive each way, very very hard after a long day at work

Re: Dipping my toe in :)
 

Just another update of our plans so far.

Went to a seminar in Manchester yesterday about emigration and securing a job in New Zealand and the best advice they could really give was to go over on a holiday first and have a look around and see if we like the country and see if we think we could settle there. Once in the country they said it would be a lot easier to try and secure job offers and we would have a much better understand of how things worked with immigration once we were there.

That was the advice they said would be best for someone in our position at this moment in time.

So the way it is looking is to get some flights booked and take it from there.

Re: Dipping my toe in :)
 

thats strange advice, can only assume the person giving it wasnt from NZ immigration
as far as I am aware, you are not allowed to seek any form of employment while on holiday visas

Re: Dipping my toe in :)
 

Re: Dipping my toe in :)
 

they seemed to of got rid of that condition since the immigration website upgrade. not sure you should inform customs when entering on a visitors visa that is your intention though

Re: Dipping my toe in :)
 

Yes, looking for work on a visitor visa seems to be a recent update and came in with the website changes. I don't think it's a change to process though as the previous visitor visa conditions never mentioned one couldn't look for work. It just mentioned you were allowed to carry out business consultations, whatever that meant.
In my opinion they have just used common sense to avoid any future confusion and to align with what happens in reality as many people used the visitor visa as a route in to the country to then approach employers and Immigration were always quite aware this happened.
A few of my colleagues used this method and they've been here 10 + years.

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Well I'll be buggered, that's new !!

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Just need to finalize a few more details and then we can look at booking some flights over. Stopping off in Thailand on the way to visit the in laws and recuperate from my knee surgery.

Anyone know of the timescales if we were to apply for skilled migrant visa for my wife after we had arrived in NZ. The plan is to spend some time holidaying and travelling around 1st and looking at which place to live would work for us. I am 95% sure she has a job offer on the table and if she was the main applicant then my understanding is that i can also gain a 2 year working visa that is not tied to one employer so I can switch employment if needed. Is that correct and also what happens after 2 years are up? Hopefully she would still be in the same employment but how does my visa fit in with that if we decided we wanted to stay in NZ?

Would anyone advise us to enter an EOI now and then travel there on a holiday visa and then get the letter of a job offer or do we wait until we arrive and then do a EOI? So much to sort and find out before we can even start to organize things.

Forgot to add that our scores on the points test were 175 for my wife with the job offer included and 110 for myself. Is there an online link for this as I just used a old list to compare scores and it may not be accurate.

Also just started the process of opening a New Zealand bank account now which seemed to go ok.
Things are hopefully starting to fall into place.

Re: Dipping my toe in :)
 

you need to be aware that the length of time it takes to process an application in NZ is much longer than processing in UK.

Your wife could uplift a temp work visa, should only take a few days to enable her to start work whilst the Visa application is processed. You may be able to get an extension on the visitors visa if necessary or just use your return flights and come back when your wife has been provided with a valid visa. If you extend the visitors visa you would not be able to work until your wifes visa has been processed and approved.
To gain a temp work visa your wife will have to provide a satisfactory job offer which again would be used for the EOI. The standards for the EOI are more stringent than the temp visa, my OH was working on a temp visa in the position he was applying for on the EOI and they sent the job offer back 3 times to be rewritten as they did not agree it met all criteria to gain the visa, or the case officer was just being over zealous.

We started the EOI before OH came over on his own to look round and was offered a job, we updated the EOI and was selected on the next selection round. The visa process was done in the UK and once we had cleared the secondary check we asked that the process of sticking the blue stamps into our passports was transferred to NZ, which they were happy to do.

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Thanks for the reply. We are going to look into the temp visa route and see if we can possibly obtain and then uplift it to a skilled migrant visa app and then I can also get a working visa on the application.

The more I look into all the visa application, the more confusing it seems to get. I really think we need to get some sort of help and advice from a visa specialist but unsure if we are better getting the help from someone in the UK before we travel for a holiday or get someone to assist once we arrive in New Zealand or use a New Zealand company whilst we are still in the UK?

Anyone recommend any immigration company's that do not cost an arm and a leg? Thinking of settling in or near Rotorua so somewhere around there or Hamilton would probably be best suited.

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Print finisher is on the list of skilled occupation so as long as you can get a valid job offer from an accredited company then you really do not need any help to collate the paperwork - which is generally all an immigration agent does. Obviously if you think you may have medical problems to get over or of refugee status then you would possibly need to go with a specialist agent.
For you case I would say save the money and get an relationship with the case officer yourself.

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Thanks again. It is my wife who has a provisional job offer as a Traditional Thai massage therapist. The employer is a new business and I'm unsure if they are accredited yet. How would they go about getting accredited and is there a link which i could maybe pass this onto them.