A common challenge facing many people is whether to include their married or de facto partner in their Residence application, but they have lived apart for several years because the partner is still in the home country. The long separation may make it difficult to prove that the relationship is still going. While the COVID-19 border and travel restrictions are acceptable reasons for a couple not to reunite in the meantime, this is still no guarantee that an application of this type will go through easily,
This creates two problems:
- Immigration may treat this sort of case as being more complex than others, because it may need to ask for more evidence or raise concerns about whether the partnership is still genuine and stable. This will slow down processing, possibly a lot;
- If the couple cannot convince INZ that they are still together, then the whole application could be declined. Remember that this special category is called the "one time" Resident Visa. That is, you only get one chance to apply.
One solution is to declare that you have a partner overseas, but don't include them in the 2021 Resident Visa application. This way, the application can be handled like other straightforward cases, and hopefully approved fairly soon. Once you are approved, you can separately start the Partner Residence application for your partner. One disadvantage of this strategy is that if the partner is included at the outset, they only need to do a Limited Medical Certificate, but if they could have been included but apply later then they have to do the full Medical.
There is an exception to the above plan, though: if the offshore partner has already got a temporary NZ visa, or has applied for one when you apply for the special Resident Visa, they must be included.