Last April, I applied for a Partnership Visa with Matt sponsoring me. Unfortunately,  we didn’t have enough evidence supporting our relationship at that point and it was declined.  The lady dealing with my application was really helpful and said she would give me a 1-year Working Holiday Visa instead.  That way I would still be able to work and live in New Zealand then re-apply for Partnership once Matt and I had been living together for a while.

I was going to wait a few more months before doing that, but thanks to work, plans changed.

My 6-month contract with work ends in the middle of April.  I’ve been asking for an extension until August because it would be impossible to find a new job with only 4 months left on my current Visa.  Last week, work asked if I could apply for the Partnership Visa now so they could give me a longer contract or even make me permanent!

There’s a lot of extra paperwork to go along with the 16-page application form, so it’s going to take a couple weeks before I can send it in.  This creates a bit of a problem since I probably won’t be accepted before my work contract expires.  I’m still not sure what will happen in this case…they want me to continue working, but I’m not really comfortable doing that without a contract.  We’ll see how it goes, but I may have to take a couple weeks off.

Good thing is, since I sent in the same application last year, my police certificate and medical forms are still valid so I don’t have to send in new ones! 
This saves me a lot of time and not to mention, money I don’t have. 

The only downside to applying for this Visa early is that it’ll only be good for a year so I’ll have to go through the whole process again before I apply for residence. Overall, I’ve had a pretty easy go with Immigration matters, which is more than most can say.  Hopefully, that luck continues.

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There’s an update for my last post on my sideblog