Pathways to Partnership

It’s spring and for some love may be in the air…although for some that love might consist of quite a bit of air, given they could be living in two completely different countries. This time of the year tends to bring about a bit of a surge in potential partnership applications as Kiwis overseas who have found the love of their life in a different country, consider moving back to start the new year in New Zealand.

Timely then, that we present an article dedicated to those folks, the ones looking to bring their significant other to the land of the long white cloud and of course needing to sort out a visa to make sure that significant other is here lawfully.

Partnership visas, happen to be a bit of a specialty of mine - having done a fair few of them, over the last twenty plus years. I think the reason I gravitate towards these kinds of applications is they are all so very unique. All applicants are unique of course, but when it comes to partners, the variety of situations they are in, and how they got there can be quite the challenge to work through the visa process and I enjoy being able to create solutions and pathways that achieve that.

It is also a really interesting part of the rules, because those rules haven’t really kept pace with the way relationships are formed and developed in the modern era. People meet in different ways, and modern relationships don’t always confirm to the more traditional set of rules that INZ might measure them by.

This week we have a look at what INZ is really assessing when it comes to a partnership application, the variety of visas available and how linking these different visa options together, is often necessary to make the leap from offshore romance to New Zealand residence.

Assessing Partnerships

There are in fact two key parts to how INZ assesses a relationship for the purposes of a partnership-based visa and understanding what they are and how they are assessed is crucial for any partner looking to make the move. Both sets of assessment criteria work together, but some couples might find they meet one but not the other, which of course means being a bit creative with the visas you apply for.

Genuine & Stable

INZ’s assessment of a relationship for a partnership-based visa involves two main parts - and both of them have to be satisfied for a visa to be approved.

Genuine and Stable

There are some basic rules that INZ applies to partners, including the fact that you cannot be close relatives (generally taken to mean immediate family or extended family in the same household - its a very tricky area), have met each other (although INZ doesn’t define if this means in person) and be at least 18 years old (16 with parent permission).

However in addition to this and as the first step, INZ wants to be able to determine if the relationship is genuine and stable, which also includes, among other things being entered in to on an exclusive and ongoing basis. This is essentially the base-line test for partners because unless you can prove the relationship is indeed genuine and stable, no amount of living together (the second key criteria) will matter.

How you prove this varies from couple to couple, but generally INZ wants to see how you communicate, evidence of your financial interdependence (you share your financial obligations and income), have plans for the future and the relationship is publicly recognised. Naturally this takes the form of various types of documentation, all of which needs to be curated carefully. Applicants tend to lean heavily in to photos of themselves at the beach or letters of support, but the evidence needs to touch on as many of these aspects as possible.

The second criteria, which is arguably just as important is that you must be “living together” and INZ ties this together with the first criteria by requiring a couple fo be living together in a relationship that is genuine and stable. Living together, actually has a fairly broad meaning, derived largely from the Property (Relationships) Act 1976 (the law governing how relationship property is recognised and dealt with. In fact some immigration rules are a cut and paste from that Act.

The Act uses the term living together in a fairly general context, meaning that you don’t necessarily have to be in the same place at the same time, all of the time. There are a lot of factors that determine if two people are living together, beyond just bricks and mortar. However INZ tends to place a lot of more emphasis on those bricks and mortar (more than they should). Typically INZ wants to see you at the same address, under the same roof and preferably in the same bedroom.

Again, how you document this (and no home videos are not acceptable) is tricky, but generally evidence of share utilities or rental agreements, documents being sent to the same home address in joint or individual names are all useful.

The trick with both of these requirements is to be able to show a good variety of evidence, rather than going by sheer volume. Ten good photos, taken at different times and in different locations, will outweigh 100 photos all taken at grandmas 80th.

Visa Options

When it comes to working out what options you or your partner might have, it gets a bit more complex, but generally follows the same logic as the two requirements discussed above and predominantly the period of time you have spent living together. We can usually break this down in to three separate categories.

• Relationship is genuine and stable, but not living together.

• Relationship is genuine and stable, and living together (in NZ or elsewhere) but for less than 12 months.

• Relationship is genuine and stable and living together (in NZ or elsewhere) for 12 months or more.

For the first group above, there are going to potentially be three applications to make. The first will be a general visitor, enabling the foreign national partner to travel here to then be able to live with the NZ party.

Partnership Options

There are various options to securing residence as a partner, most of which depend on how long you have lived together.

There is actually no visa that facilitates this, but INZ will consider this situation if the right evidence is provided. Unfortunately some advisers aren’t aware of this and try and fudge a general visitor visa - far better to just explain the situation and the end goal. The second visa will be a work visa, once the couple have been living together for a few months - work visas under partnership, don’t have a minimum living together timeframe, but two to three months with good evidence is the general rule of thumb. Finally residence can be pursued, after living together for 12 months (residence does have a strict time requirement).Bear in mind that for residence, that 12 months is measured in days…if you live together for 364 days, you fail…365 days and you succeed - so any time spent apart needs to be considered in the timing.

For the second option, then essentially you skip the visitor visa, moving directly to the work visas, given there is a period of time spent living together already in hand. Then finally for option three, its go directly to residence, do not pass go, but save yourself a bit more than $200 on application fees.

For some applicants, there is also the potential to be able to move directly to Permanent Residence, which means you skip the usual resident visa with two years of travel conditions. This option is reserved for those who have been living together for a period of five years, in a relationship with a New Zealand citizen (NZ residents don’t count here) and have spent the majority of that five years offshore. Both the applicant and NZ partner cannot have spent more than three months in any year of the five, in NZ and must be offshore when applying or have been in NZ for no longer than three months on that date. This can be a pretty significant advantage for some, who are not yet sure as to when they want to relocate, as securing PR means you can move here whenever you like.

The visas you need and steps to take will all depend on the nature of your relationship, time spent living together and your overall plans to move - something you need to carefully consider and think through before you fall head over heels in to the visa process.

Where Partnership Cases Go Wrong

I am often told, by prospective candidates that the partnership pathway appear pretty easy - after all there is only really one thing INZ is looking very closely at and that is the relationship. Provided you can document that relationship, it should be a breeze…no? Well for some applicants that can be the case, but its rare for a partnership application to simply sail through the process. Some of the key mistakes people make are identified below - some relatively minor, and some pretty catastrophic.

Going Off The Rails

While partnership applications can appear straightforward, they do have the potential to go very wrong, if not managed in the right way.

Eligibility of Supporting Partner - Your NZ partner, the one supporting the application has to be eligible, which includes not having sponsored more than one other applicant under partnership before (this includes being a partner in an application themselves). If they have previously supported or been supported, then five years must have passed, before the next residence application can be filed.

Your supporting partner also needs to meet specific character requirements, given INZ wants to prevent any new applicant being the victim of domestic violence - so police clearances are often required for that supporting partner. If your supporting partner is an Australian (and no there is no connection between Australia and the previous comment about convictions), living in NZ as a resident, they can still support you, but need have their base established in NZ.

Along with your supporting partner being eligible, you have to ensure your evidence is sound and again that goes back to quality over quantity. Dumping hundreds of photos on INZ’s desk is not going to paint the right picture and arguably that is what you are aiming to do. Your partnership “story” needs to be well illustrated and give INZ a clear picture as to how you met, how your relationship developed and that it is indeed genuine and stable.

Finally, if you are called for an interview, don’t panic. INZ use interviews for two reasons - one they might have some doubts they need to clear up, or the evidence might not paint the right picture. Provided your relationship is genuine, stable and legitimate, you should have nothing to fear - although a little planning and preparation never goes amiss.

How We Can Help?

Hopefully by now (if you have read this far) you have worked out that we are pretty familiar with how INZ assesses a partnership application and some of the quirks that the assessment process might take. We also know how to manage the process for people, whether they are in the first, second or third stage of that relationship category. For those not yet living together, the process is obviously more complex and getting that initial visitor visa right is crucial.

Our approach to partnerships is to first understand what your particular relationship looks like, compared to how the rules might want it to look and then to craft a series of steps and applications that will ultimately lead to you being able to live together, here in New Zealand.

If you are considering the big move, to join you other half, here in New Zealand, a great first step is to establish which of the various visa options is going to work for you and then develop a clear plan for proving your relationship to the powers that be. That is where we can assist, navigating you through that process, all the way to the finish line.

Call me cupid, but there is something very satisfying about being able to reunite a couple here in New Zealand and perhaps that is why I enjoy these applications (and the outcomes) so much.

Until next week.