2021 Resident Visa
SPECIAL - Number 2
November 2021
Greetings!
This issue hits some specific points that are important to how to prepare for this application.

You can also have a look at our previous 2021 Resident Visa newsletter to get more background information.

Simon Laurent
Principal
We are Getting Ready
We recommend that you arrange a first appointment in order to check if you are eligible to apply.

We are pleased to announce that we have set up a new online booking system for client appointments. Try it now in order to get started.

We have also developed a questionnaire so that you can help quickly get the right information to put into the online application. Once we get instructions to prepare your application, this is the first thing we will send you so that we can prepare to file the application.

The online system for the 2021 Resident Visa is not live yet. However, we have a good idea of what will be in it, based on our experience of doing many other applications on the INZ Online platform.
Which Category?
  1. As we mentioned last time, you need to meet one of the 3 qualifying criteria:

  • Settled: you have been in NZ for most of the 3 years up to 29 September; or
  • Skilled: you are paid, or will be paid, at least $27 an hour; or
  • Scarce: you are working, or will be working, in a job for which there is a shortage of people, on a new (and quite broad) occupation list.

Immigration New Zealand expects that most applicants will meet the Settled test. Those in the industry agree that this is the easiest way to succeed, so if you can use it, then use it. The Skilled and Scarce rules could lead to problems:

  • People relying on being Skilled - that is, being paid $27 per hour, could find Immigration picking over their tax summaries and their employer's wage and time records to see if their real rate of pay is lower than that.
  • INZ claims that all that people need to do to be recognised as Scarce, is to show that they do that job (for instance, as a Chef). However, this opens up the risk that visa officers could get into asking for proof of what work you actually do. Our experience of Work Visa or Skilled Migrant Residence applications is that this can be an exhaustive exercise. Hopefully they don't go down this track, but this is hard to predict when there is no history of visa processing under this policy to rely upon.

In either case, we can add real value by ensuring that your application is "front-end loaded" - that is, you supply everything at the time of application which could answer Immigration's questions before they even ask them. The result will be faster processing, and getting Residence a whole lot quicker.
Health and Character
Police Certificates from your home country will not be required in order to file a 2021 Resident Visa application. INZ may still ask for one if they believe it is necessary. They will still be getting a Police Check from the NZ Police, who may not be able to keep up with the large number of requests that they will get from 1 December. This could slow the whole application process down quite a lot.

If you have done an Immigration Medical in the last 3 years, you do not need to get a new one. This is the same as in the current visa rules. If you do need to get a new Medical, then you only have to provide a Limited Medical Certificate, which is a cut-down medical check (and probably cheaper).

Most people who do not meet the Acceptable Standard of Health (ASH) will get a Medical Waiver. There is still an exception to this. If one of your family in the application has certain conditions like TB, or requiring dialysis, or being severely intellectually or physically disabled, they cannot get the Waiver. The whole family's application could then be declined.

If you believe that someone in your family may be excluded from a Medical Waiver for one of these reasons, contact us for a consultation.