Hello Everyone
 

HI My name is Nic and my wife is Jen, i am 40 yrs old and she is 38 yrs old.We have decided on moving to New Zealand , i am coming over in May 2019 for 10 days to have a explore and set a few possible meet up's with hope fully a few prospective employers.
I am a Carpenter with 6 years experience behind me i retrained in my career so i could migrate its been a dream of mine for over 15 yrs and now its seems very possible as i was told by a emigration company that i have an excellent chance of getting a resident visa.i have lots of questions rattling around in my head and wondering where to start so my questions are.

Where do you all recommend to live north island or south if so where about's ?
Has anyone used a company called Canstaff for work if so what are they like?
has anyone recently move from the uk if so who did you use for visa's and how much did you end up paying?

Thanks Nic n Jen

Re: Hello Everyone
 

Hi and welcome to BE.
No use stressing or mulling over which island or which city, town, village etc. If you really wanna live in NZ you'll consider anywhere you can get a job as that is your stepping stone in to the country. You can always narrow down your desirables once you are living here.
Loads of people from the UK have used Canstaff. I haven't heard any bad reports about them.
We moved over 7 years ago. We employed an approved immigration consultant company called WorkingIn based in Auckland. Fees were approx 4500 but unsure if that was pounds or NZD. We got 50% off as we signed up with them at an overseas expo in the UK.
Resident visa alone will cost near NZ $4000 just for Immigration.

Re: Hello Everyone
 

hello nic,

I ain't been on here since i moved out here about 4 months ago but i will give u my experience of NZ so far.

The country is beautiful and I can say the move for me and my wife has been the best decision we made. but its defo not for everyone and il explain why just to clear stuff up that you may not have thought about.

I live in Auckland and work in construction and earn about 75k a year plus company vehicle. so in UK terms it would be aboit 40k a year package. If I had a couple of kids and my wife couldn't work due to looking after kids we wouldnt be able to afford to live. we would be on the breadline living in a cheap area. It was ok for us as we don't have children and rented a room in a house share for 4 months till we both had employment and sorted our selfs out.
we came out with 40kg of clothes and started again and its working out good.

Also coming for a few weeks and on holiday is completely different from living here.
I can see why so many people go home as everything is complety diffrent and its defo not for everyone. it's not like the uk everything you can think of is differnt. but I enjoy it and like the chilled out way of things.
Look at the costs aswell it well cost about 15k at least to get out here and sorted. if there only one of you working you need use savings to live.

Also I don't know where your from in the uk.
there is not as much work and construction going on out here as back home. so don't know how much work for chippies there would be out here. everything is on a smaller scale here. it's not as built up and busy and less people which is good but means less work.

There loads of different Visa options aswell.
look on the accredited employer list and go on construction and email the relevant employers.
These employers will sort everything out and have a work to residence visa fast.
Me and my wife visa was approved in 3 days.

If you have any questions about Auckland or anything else just ask and il try to give you a answer.

Re: Hello Everyone
 

Hi there and welcome to BE


Best to see where the work could be first. South Island will have a cheaper cost of living than say Auckland which is expensive.
Yes. Tradesmen have. Probably perfectly efficient their end. Just ensure the quality of the contract offered.[/quote]

There is no need to use someone to do your visa paperwork. In any case if you obtain a job offer through Canstaff they will be able to help you with that. If not, we can .

Re: Hello Everyone
 

South Island... But I'm biased