scarlettcate

Hi,

I'm new to this forum and just trying to get my head around how the whole immigration process works and was hoping I could get the benefit of your experiences!

Bit of background info......we are from the Midlands and have 4 small children. My husband has been offered a job in either the Hawkes bay area or Christchurch and the company will assist with visa, relocation costs etc. It will be a 2 year contract with the option to extend from there. We want to make this a permananent move.

We have to sell the house (not good in this climate) and I have just had some really disappointing valuations from estate agents that would just about clear everthing but leave us with no/ little savings. We were thinking about selling the house and then renting for 6mths to save more money but would this be pointless??? My husbands job will pay around the 70K mark with bonuses on top.....is this money enough to live on for a family of 6?

In addition, we don't want to sell the house if we can't get visas so can we apply for visas asap? How long are they valid?

Is there anything similar to child benefit we would be eligible for?

Also, I work p/t here and work remotely. I was wondering about the possibility of continuing this work in NZ for the same employer (we do have colleagues in Aus)......how does that work in terms of taxation etc???

Sorry for all the questions - just trying to figure out the best plan of action because we really really want to relocate.

Thanks
Scarlett!

teebrown

Hello and welcome to the site,

OK I will try and answer some of your questions, but if I am wrong I am sure someone will let me know.

First of all congratulations on getting a job offer, the first thing to do is register on the NZIS website (New Zealand Immigration Services) and then start to fill out the EOI and get a rough idea of how many points you will have, don't worry you can do this without submitting it. If you have 100 points or more you can be entered into the pool, if you have 140 points or more you will automatically get pick out, but usually if you have 100 points or more with a job offer you are in with a good chance.

Here is the process:

- Submit EOI (Express of interest)
the pool selection sits every 2 weeks on a wednesday.

- If you log on to the NZIS website, and go into your EOI after submission, it will say whether you have been selected and at what stage your application is at all times.

- Once selected from the Pool, they will then check all your details and all the points you are claiming and then your status on the website will change to EOI sucessfull.

- At this point you will then get an ITA (Invitation to Apply) - this means they agree so far with your points and would like you to apply in full. The ITA can be quick to get to you and as you have a job offer you will be priorty or it can take a few months (usually if you don't have a job offer) - once you have gathered all your paperwork and included your medicals and got everything certified you are ready to send in your ITA. I suggest you start to gather all paperwork as soon as you submit your EOI.

- Once the ITA has been received at NZ House your status on line should read, Application received and status pending on decission.

- Hopefully the decission will be very quick, I have heard people get a decission within 10 days, then your status will say visa granted.

You will then have to send in your passports (if you haven't already) to get the blue visa stickers stamped in them.

And thats it, you then have 12 months to enter the country.

The infomation in the ITA is like an idiots guide on how to fill it out, it's very striaght forward and it tells you in what order to put your documents, but as I said before, you can cut down on time if you get all your police checks etc done now - but don't forget the medical reports are only valid for 3 months, so I would wait until your EOI has been accepted first for thoses.


Anyway on the house front, we too are trying to sell our, but have decided to rent it out now instead and ride out the rough patch.

Once you get a visa you have 12 months to enter the country.

Yes there is an equivilant to Child benefit over there, not sure how much it is a month.

Hope this helps a little for you, just keep asking questions on here.

Tee

Yummy_Mummy

Hey

Sorry cant really help with your questions, but just wanted to say Hello and Welcome

Oh and not to forget... Good Luck and Congratz on Hubby's job offer... Certainly does make things alot easier.

C xxx

newkiwi

Hi, congrats on the job offer, thats one big hurdle out of the way.

You say the company will help with visas, find out from them if this means a work permit or permanent residency. work permits are often processed faster, so it may be that the company wants to get your husband a work permit rather then helping him get permanent residency. it that is the case you still have a couple of options
1. ask them if they will help you apply for perm residency instead (provided you have enough points and qualify)
2. go to nz on a work permit and apply for residency once you are in nz (extra cost for you, but gets you in nz quicker and working, only if you have enough points and qualify)
3. stay working on a work permit for longer and renew until u qualify/ apply for residency at a later stage.

I think 1 is the best option, followed by 2 and 3 is the least good option imo.

In terms of housing, if you feel you are going to get a raw deal selling, keep the house in the uk and rent it out instead. you will need to rent in nz initially anyway, and if you do decide to return to the uk if nz doesnt work out for whatever reason you will still have a house to return to.

there are child / family credits, i think there are limts on when you qualify for it, eg do u need to be a perm resident, do u need to wait a certain amount of time before you qualify etc. look on the website sorted.org.nz for some financial planning advice.

$70k is not bad for chch/ hawkes bay, would not be that great for auckland. a family of 6 is a lot of mouths to feed...lol...so u will have to budget carefully.

you have no restrictions in terms of working in nz as a partner of a nz work permit/ resident. if you live in nz while working you are taxed in nz, even if yu do work for clients in other countries. there are double taxation agreements so if tax is subtracted overseas you can usually get that amount credited against your nz tax liability, but your tax liability will be worked out in nz.

u could look at setting up a company in your name and working for your existing employer as a consultant, but u should talk to a nz tax advisor once you get to nz if you want to go down that sort of route.

good luck with the immigration plans

lindsay loo

Hi Congratulations and welcome!

I cant give you too much advice on moving as we are still in uk, also in the Midlands, hoping to move out next September. We have 3 kids 19, 17 and 14. We are also about to put our house on the market so we are not panicking at the last minute and if it sells we will rent here until we are ready. Other friends of ours have gone without selling and are going to rent their house here for at least 2 years. They say that house prices are going down in NZ too so they want to rent there until it is more stable.

Best wishes, Lindsay

lapsed kiwi

Concur with advice above but just wanted to add - do your sums very carefully before deciding to rent out your house in UK. If you don't have much equity (and it sounds like this might be the case) you may struggle to cover the mortgage with rental income. And you need to consider what you will do if you have no tenants for a few months - if you need to start moving money back to UK to pay your mortgage, you are going to struggle big time on $70k. Good luck though, it's worth the effort!

Genesis

Once you have PR you can claim 'family tax credits' we earn around the same $75k ish joint income and we got an extra $4500 back from the tax man. So yes there is summat like 'child benefit' just a different name. Remeber you only get it with PR. Good luck matey!!

welshwales

Can you tell us what it's called or is it a secret

lardyl

Check out WINZ's website for details WelshWales.
But bear in mind if you take the Tax Credits you will lose your four years of tax relief on UK rental income. SO if the Credits are just to get you over a hump at the start and you are renting out your UK property then it is worth doing a swift calculation to decide what to go for.
WINZ info is at:

http://www.workingforfamilies.govt.nz/

http://www.workingforfamilies.govt.nz/tax-credits/

and

http://www.workandincome.govt.nz/

Good luck.

Genesis

Working for family tax credits. No secret, just was a bit pissed last night and my memory goes somewhat to pot during these episodes.

luvwelly

I'd be seriously concerned about that salary level and a family of 6 - especially if you will eventually have a mortgage here - it would be easier if you could move here and be mortgage free (cashed up pom syndrome lol) but it sounds like you couldn't.

I understand the cost of living in NZ has recently gone up almost a quarter on a basket of items and mortgage interest rates are around 10% mark (high compared to UK), and you get taxed on every dollar earned - so please do your sums very very carefully....financially the grass may well not be greener here.

Renting out in UK does indeed have its pitfalls as another poster pointed out...my UK property was empty for 4 months and I received no rental income for 6 months because of the time it took to evict the non-paying tenant...I could afford to send funds back to cover...this is a real concern if you can't as you could then potentially have your UK house repossessed with you not even in the country. You also have to have a fully managed arrangement with your managing agent and that doesn't come cheap. Depending on the area your house is in and the market demand (sometimes smaller properties rent out more easily) you may find it easier than we have done to get decent long-term tenants. The one who defaulted had been there a couple of years but we still lost thousands in lost rental income and legal fees....essentially because her relationship broke down.
I think you really need to get your calculator out before spending out on medicals etc etc .
Also clarify exactly what the company means by relocation assistance..it's very expensive making the move and many people use equity from their house sale to cover it.
Goodness, your airfares are going to be massive..does the employer pay those? Don't forget container costs, buying a car here etc etc...I'm sure there's more but it's late.