Partner/Family Work and Residency Visas

At the law office of Mark Manhire lawyer we help clients bring foreign family members into New Zealand. We work with parents, fiances, and employees so that they can live and work in New Zealand with their families. Our practice is focused on helping people and their family members enter, live, and work in New Zealand legally.

Family Based Immigration

Government residence policy recognises that Family Residence Categories are an important nation-building component of our overall immigration policy, but the various requirements of the Family Category can at times prove to be onerous. Often people are unsure whether or not their sponsored family members will even qualify. The reality is also that current immigration policy prioritizes the Skilled Migrant Application over the Family residence application, often resulting in Family residence applications being pushed further down the line. For these reasons alone it is important to take early and reliable advice from Mark Manhire so that an acurate assessment can be undertaken and the appropriate advice given in response.

For a New Zealand-based family member to sponsor their partner, sibling or dependent child for residence, it is important to ascertain at the outset whether the family member is an eligible sponsor. To be so, they must be:

• 17 years of age and over
• They must be living in New Zealand
• Other than in the case of a partner or dependent child/children, they must have been a New Zealand permanent resident or citizen for at least 3 years
• They must also be able to meet support requirements, thus accepting responsibility for ensuring that adequate accommodation in New Zealand is and continues to be available for their family members.

Partnership Residence

Should you wish to apply for residence under the partnership category you must be either married to or in a de facto relationship or civil union (including same-sex relationships) with a New Zealand citizen or resident who can also satisfy sponsorship requirements. The applicant and sponsor must have been living together for at least one year prior to the date of the application and must be able to establish that their relationship is genuine and stable.