NZ police report

Another quick update:

Recieved another email from the handler, just advising that they have recieved the pages I sent back in, and that they have requested and are waiting for Sarah's NZ police report (that is something they take care of, we did not need to send it in!).

Lost in transit

A quick update:

I received a friendly email last Friday from  the person handling my application at the NZ embassy. Apparently I had forgotten to include about 6 pages of the application form, and incorrectly filled 1 page out, they very helpfully included a pdf form for me to print and re-fill these bits out.

Now, I know for certain that I did include those pages as I triple checked the application and they were all attached with a paper clip. Interestingly, the pages that were misisng were pages that did not apply to my application so were blank. I can only assume that the form was pre-processed before being passed to the handler, and that person decided to remove these 'blank' pages. Very annoying.

So I reprinted these pages, and made sure I wrote N/A next to every part. I did, as mentioned, fill out one part incorrectly, which was asking me to list how many countries I'd lived in for over a year. I assumed I did not need to put in the UK, but apparently I do!

The forms have now been sent off again, directly to the handler, so hopefully it will all be processed quickly and there will be no more hiccups.

Partner Support Application

OK, this is the biggy, the main application form.

The Partner Support Application form is a massive 28 pages, fortunately there are a few sections that you can skip. Again the form is pretty straight forward, the worst part is the amount of writing and listing all of mine and Sarah’s family’s details. The form requires yet another 2 passport photos of me and 2 of Sarah.

As well as the main form, Sarah also had to complete her own Partner SupportForm, this form is not too long though. However with this form her signature needs to be witnessed by solicitor or Justice of the Peace. We made an appointment with our local solicitor, who did this the next day for a £5 fee. Sarah had to read the declaration out loud and swear on the bible!

With the application we have to send proof of our relationship, the onus is on us to provide enough. So we sent in things like a past rent agreement, utility bills, nursery bills, bank letters, flight bookings (from previous holidays), as well as Amelia’s birth certificate and 2 pages of printed photos. We tried our best to cover all of these over as many years as we could, so hopefully we have done enough.

Additionally we both sent in our passports, full birth certificates, police reports and I included my medical report. The fee for this a whoping £720, for which we included a cheque. We carefully sealed all of this up in a nice padded and envelope and send it recorded delivery to the London office.

The stated process time for this category of application is 1-3 months. It does seem we will be able to check how it’s going on-line, so I’ll have to see how good the on-line service is.

Wish us luck.

UPDATE

We posted the form on Monday and today (Thursday) we have received a confirmation letter and receipt for the cheque.   

Dual Nationality

Instead of applying for my residency straight away, we decided that the first thing to apply for was Amelia’s dual nationality, as it should only take a month. We couldn’t apply for everything at the same time as we needed to use some of the documents for both applications, Sarah’s passport. We also realised that we couldn't travel abroad until we had it back!

The Application for Registration of New Zealand Citizenship by Descent form is pretty straight forward to fill out. It does require 2 passport photos of the person, which can be fun to get if that person is a child, luckily Amelia was really good. We also needed to send in Amelia’s passport, birth certificate as well as Sarah’s NZ passport and birth certificate.

We then posted if off with a cheque for £94 to the London office.

It actually came back quicker than we thought and we had it back within 3 weeks! Amelia is now an official citizen of New Zealand!

So now I need to pull my finger out and fill out the beast that is the main application form.