dave77

Hi there,

I am a 31 year old electrician from Essex who is very keen on emigrating to New Zealand, most likely South Island (Christchurch or Dunedin)! My wife is a primary school teacher and we have three beautiful young children who we want to provide a better life for.

I'd be very interested to hear from anyone in the UK in a similar position as we are new to the whole process or especially anybody living in these areas who could share any advice or experiences.

Hope to hear from you soon

Dave

teebrown

Hello and welcome,

We will be heading for Christchurch in 3 weeks time, we went over a couple of years ago and loved Christchurch, we didn't go to Dunedin but they do say it's where the Scots head for (my husband is scottish and looked into it).

What stage of the process are you at?

dave77

Hello!

Nice to meet you! Thanks for your reply. Yes they both look lovely areas and I couldn't choose between them without a decent holiday visiting both areas first!!
It's all very early days to be honest (we've only just decided between Oz, Canada and NZ! That took us 6 months!!). We are going to our first emigrate show next weekend and hopefully it will give me a better idea of the visa process, which I don't quite understand at the moment!
Looks like you're all ready to go, flights booked... not long now! Good luck!

Kind Regards

Dave

teebrown

Hi,

The visa process was very daunting for me too, until I read every thread on here until my eyes bleed!!

in a quick over view this may help you:

EOI = Expression of interest
ITA = Invitation to Apply
PR = Permanent Residence
WTR = Work to Residence
NZIS = NZ Immigration Site

You must get 100 points to go into a fortnight pool which is drawn on a wednesday. The more points you get the quicker you will get pulled. If you have 140+ you will get automatically pulled. You get points for being in a skilled job, being offered a job, working outside of Auckland, having various qualifications etc all gain you points. When you think you have enough points (you can check this by using the NZIS) fill out your EOI online and save it, your points will be calculated at the top automatically, you don't have to submit for EOI just save it.

When you are pulled from the pool you will be sent an ITA, this is just a computer copy of your EOI and this is when you have to prove your point you are claiming, You will then have to submit your Police certs (this are only valid for 6 months) and your medicals (only valid for 3 months), don't get these done until you receive your ITA as you don't want them to go out of date.

Once you submit your ITA with all the paper work the immigration service will then either grant you a visa or ask for more info they require.

Hope this helps a little on the process for you.

Good luck

The process is quite easy (well in my opinion) and the immigration people are very helpful.

all the best

dave77

Hi!

This is great information and helps a lot to clear things up (especially all these acronyms!). Thanks
So when (or if!) you have a visa granted, how long have you got to move, is there a deadline?
Also, is it required to have a job offer? I will check out the NZ immigration site and have a look at the points I'm worth!

Thanks for the advice,

Dave

teebrown

Hi, glad to help.

When a visa is granted, you have 6 months to send in your passports and then a year to arrive in NZ from the date the visa is put into your passports - this is for a PR visa, not sure about a WTR visa.

No you don't have to have a job offer, you just have to have enough points.

We went into the pool with 115 points but did have a job offer and from start to finish our PR visa took 8 weeks - but that is very very quick (not sure why, just was).

I would recommend doing the visa's yourself and save yourself tons of money, you just have to be organised and ask questions on here, someone will help you out.

I will say though, if you have a job offer, your application does get delt with a little quicker.

All the best

dave77

Hello again!

That was quick, I have a friend who is in Oz now and his visas took around 2 years to go through!

I've just checked out the NZIS and did a quick points check and it looks like we have enough which I'm very happy about

I must admit I would prefer to do the process by myself (I presume the agents can be very expensive!). Have you done your Visas without the use of one?

Sorry to bombard you with questions! So does each family member require a seperate visa or only the main applicant? What is the going rate of a PR visa via the skilled migrant route, I read in a book around $1400 NZ dollars, does that sound about right? Is this for each person?

That all sounds reasonable, so in theory you could have as long as 18 months from receiving the visa to going to NZ.

We're off to Sandown this sunday for the emigration show, so hopefully will learn more then!

Best wishes

Dave

teebrown

Hi Dave,

Yes we did all the immigration ourselves, personally I found it all straight forward, as long as you ar organised i.e get copies certified, photo copy birth certs, marriage certs, get proof of relationship (references from friends, photos, previous address etc. The EOI was straight forward on-line, basically just answer the questions asked.

I would definitely say do it yourselves, theses agencies are so expensive and you have to actually do all the paper work for them, all they tend to do is collate it.

Once the principle aplicant applies for a visa, they can also put down all family members and they too will get a visa under the main applicant which will enable them to work.

You should go online and have a look at the EOI and see what questions they ask, as I mentioned before you don't have to submit it.

I can't remember how much the fees are, but again, if you look on the NZIS site on the visa page there is a link which will tell you about forms and where to find the Panel doctors for your medicals (I would recommend getting quotes from different Panel Doctors as the prices do vary).

Just prepare yourself and ask tons of questions on here.

Good luck

Tee