Weather, Primary Teachers and Plumbers!
 

Hi

I'm an ex-Zimbabwean, married in the UK with an English wife and two pre-school kids. The boss is a primary school teacher with 10+ years experience, and I've been running a plumbing business for the last 5 years since I got made redundant from Beastly Gas.

I've been waiting to move back from the UK to Zim for the last 17 years, basically for the climate and quality of life, and have realised that that may never happen! NZ looks to be the place of choice - are there any other ex-zimbos who have spent time in the UK who can tell me whether the weather is better in NZ?

Looking at the posts, it looks like our best option is for the boss to apply for immigration, and for me to try to get registered while we’re over there. I’m a bit confused though – is it best that she applies from the UK through the NZ immigration service, avoiding the immigration consultants who seem to take money for not much, or should we just come on a working visa and try to find work and apply for immigration while in the country?

Never been to NZ, but spent time in Oz, and the humour and way things are done in NZ seem to be similar to Zim and Oz, and more laid back than the UK. We hope to be able to bring over about £30k, hopefully this will help to ease things. My only concern is the old frying pan/fire thing when it comes to the economy and weather; don’t mind too much about starting from scratch – done that before!

Any thoughts would be most welcome – give me bad and good news, I can take it!

Re: Weather, Primary Teachers and Plumbers!
 

Hi and welcome to the NZ forum.

We're all here to try and help so fire away with anything you want to ask.
You may want to start new threads on either the Immigration forum or the General one as more folks hang around in those areas. The intro threads are closed after a week.

I'll just give a quick answer to a couple of your thoughts .

1 - You must have a job offer first before you can apply for a work visa.

2 - As you know, you cannot be self-employed in plumbing or gas unless you are a PGDB craftsman. This means not just registration but also two further exams following that. If you set up a business in the trade then you will have to employ a PGDB craftsman to sign off the work.

3 - Teaching is skilled so you can apply for PR under the SMC.

4 - Primary teachers are NOT on the long term shortage list so yu cannot claim points for absolute shortage

5 - Plumbers are on the long term shortage list , so you can claim points for absolute shortage.

6 - It may be possible for you to claim points for the trade skill if you have a positive PGDB pre-assessment as this indicates that you are eligible to become fully PGDB registered once here and working.

It may be best to understand the NZIS system first before looking into whether or not you want to pay money for an agent. At least that way you will know what you are paying for.

Anyway, welcome to this little NZ forum and look forward to seeing you post into the Immigration and General NZ forums. :)

Re: Weather, Primary Teachers and Plumbers!
 

Hello and welcome to BE

Phyl x

Re: Weather, Primary Teachers and Plumbers!
 

Bump

Husband came home this evening and said he had bumped into a Zimbawean who worked for a refrigeration company in our area.

Perhaps contact

Best and West Limited

you can find the details in the NZ yellow pages . Look for an address in Richmond.

:confused:

hi another plumber here heading for nz as soon as pos looking for work good luck,see you soon:thumbup:

Re: Weather, Primary Teachers and Plumbers!
 

From here.....

;)

However, the OP did not come back to us.