Are We There Yet?

If you are a parent, and have children that have reached the stage of being able to vocalise their opinions, you will know how terrifying that first “are we there yet” can be, when you are in the car and on the road. It is terrifying because the first one, is usually followed by an uncannily timed series of the same sentence, on repeat, with gaps just long enough to make you think they might have moved on.

This monotonous repetition of the same plea, is then occasionally broken up by a very cleverly dispersed “how much further”, just to make sure you are still listening.

With the work we do, it can sometimes feel as though we have a whole stack of impatient people in the back of the car, all trying to work out how far away they are from their final destination - which is actually fair enough. Unlike your children who usually know exactly how far away they are from their final destination, most migrants wouldn’t have a clue and while we always give general timelines, it is almost impossible to predict the precise day a visa will be issued.

What we do know however is what happens behind the scenes, which contributes to the time it takes for that visa to appear and so this week, we thought it might a good idea to explain some of those processes to applicants in the midst of an application or those contemplating starting one.

Sometimes, just understanding how the various wheels in the INZ machinery turn, can calm a few nerves and make the process of getting to your final destination a little less nail-biting

The Nervous Wait

You have run the race, prepared all your documents, secured the job and then finally managed to navigate your way through the maze that is INZ’s phenomenally expensive, yet completely confusing, online application form. The beads of sweat roll down your forehead as you nervously move your cursor over the submit button…and then “click”.

Why Are We Waiting

Waiting for a visa to be approved can be a very anxious process, particularly if you are unfamiliar with the process.

Your application is gone, into the ether, probably along with several hundred others, all being sent in at the same time. You get confirmation that the payment has been processed and if you are lucky you might also get an email from INZ at some stage, confirming that your visa is now “being processed”.

It is usually at this stage, that people (doing it on their own) start to count the hours, days, weeks and sometimes months until a decision is made. There will also be the occasional moment of panic, wondering if every document made it to it’s intended destination and was every box correctly completed. This anxious wait isn’t helped by the fact that there is no real way to track the progress of an application either, despite INZ trying to do that with the Accredited Employer Work Visa system.

Even with “progress” steps available for some applications, these are never accurate and so once your application is submitted, the next update you will get that means anything is when a decision is made. You can of course call INZ’s call centre, but the information you gather there will leave you none the wiser. INZ’s website provides “average” timeframes which are about as useful as an ice-block in a snow storm.

As my South African clients would say this is the time when you need to “hurry up and wait” (I do love that saying) and to some degree that is true. The application, if prepared correctly, will work its way through the system and eventually end up with a human being, who will then make a decision on what you have presented them with.

For us, we do tend to approach this a little differently and given we will present a client’s application with everything required and therefore have some expectation as to the time it should take, we will leave INZ (for a short period) to lodge and allocate the application and then start the somewhat relentless pursuit of an outcome.

Each application will be processed in it’s own timeframe and some will take longer than others, for various reasons (health issues, character concerns, verification of documents etc). So relying on Facebook fanatics telling you how long it should take will just add to your anxiety.

The most important thing to understand in terms of how long it might take your visa to be processed, is that the better prepared it is, with all of the right information provided and questions answered - the quicker that process will be. People often ask me “if I use and adviser will the process be quicker” and I always reply with “yes, but only because we get it right from the start”.

Unfolding The Process

One significant reason as to why this waiting time can create so much angst, is that there isn’t really a clear explanation as to what is happening with your application once you click submit (and wipe the sweat from your forehead). However it isn’t as mysterious as you might think and knowing what is happening might just clarify why the process can take a while.

The same process generally applies to all visas (temporary or residence), given almost every application is submitted electronically. The first thing to occur is that your application is sent (electronically of course) to a lodgement office, where an officer is responsible for reviewing what you have submitted to ensure that everything that needs to be there, is there. In some cases you might get a request for a missing document and in others, that officer might just leave it up to the next person to request. Considering you have already paid the fee, INZ almost always has to accept your application for processing. In the old days (I sound like my children) if your paper-based application was incomplete, INZ could courier it back to you, to start all over again.

Behind The Scenes

Every visa application goes through various steps, all of which contribute to the time it takes to be decided.

Once the application has been lodged, the file is then distributed to the branch that handles that type of visa. INZ tends to split up their workload based on visa types (they call them products) and so if you have filed a visitor visa, that will go to one particular branch, if it is a student visa, then it will end up with another branch and so on.

Whilst all of this going on, there are other background checks happening as well. Your medicals will undergo an assessment through a separate team of INZ staff (the health assessment team) and in some cases, your background details will be screened by a completely separate branch (for reasons of highly secretive national security). These things tend to happen in tandem with your actual application working its way to the branch and then eventually an officer.

Once the application is at the right branch, it then usually ends up in a queue, awaiting allocation to the next available case officer (like a punter waiting for a taxi or uber). The time you stand in that queue depends on how many applications the branch is dealing with, and also whether your application needs any further documentation. For some visas, different immigration officers will pick up the file at different points and might request more information, before it goes back in to the queue. The end goal for INZ being that the complete file, should end up with an officer who can then make a final decision. The more complete your application is upfront, the less time is spent going back and forth before that decision can be made.

Once the application is at that assessment stage, things start to move forward a bit more quickly. The assessment process is a bit different for temporary and resident visas, given there are more steps involved in the decision making process, however once all of the background checks have come back, medicals are cleared and any issues resolved - that final decision can be made. However the decision is usually a two-step process, where the assessing officer makes a recommendation and that is then checked by a more senior officer to ensure it is correct (the quality check stage).

All resident visa applications go through that quality control process and most temporary visas do as well, but for some temporary visas, given there are so many of them to process, the original officer’s decision is final. At this last stage, the decision is made and then your visa is (hopefully) issued.

So whilst it might feel like nothing is happening, the reality is, there is quite a bit going on in the background that you wont be aware of. There is of course some down time while your application sits in a queue, but with the number of visas to be processed, that is inevitable. However, how long you are in that queue is often down to how well prepared the application is. If you want to see things move more quickly, then having a well documented, correctly completed application, from the start, is the best way to achieve this.

The Need For Speed

I don’t think I have ever met a client who hasn’t wanted things to move quickly, and I suspect many applicants engage advisers for that reason alone, not necessarily understanding that there is a lot more to the application than how quickly it moves through the process. Getting a decision really quickly isn’t that useful when the decision is not what you were hoping for.

Slow and steady wins the race, although if you do it right, your application doesn’t necessarily need to be that slow. More time spent on preparing the application however, almost always means a faster process. We recently assisted an applicant through the residence process and spent a considerable amount of time on the upfront preparation, knowing that there were some curly things to work through. That extra time and effort, meant a very swift decision when the file was with INZ (only a few weeks) and of course a very appreciative client.

If you are in the process of applying for a visa for New Zealand or considering taking that step, just remember that good things do take time and the more time you take in making sure you are on the right track, have the right documents, and your application is “decision ready” the better (and potentially faster) the process will unfold. Some good advice along the way, from people with the patience and experience to make that happen is also pretty useful.

Until next week…