Problems Getting Visitor Visa To Nz For My Thai Wife's Brother

[Johnnz]

Hello all,

First time to post here. Have found much useful information on this site, and hope someone can help with advice to get through a problem we are having at the moment.

My Thai wife and I are trying to get a visitor visa for her brother to visit us in New Zealand. We applied a month or so with all the forms (I applied as his sponsor), but heard back from them via email that they would be unlikely to approve his application without additional documents detailing reasons to assure them that he would return to Thailand (he has been without a job for nearly a year).

After sucessfully aquiring New Zealand residency for my (now) wife about 2 and a half years ago, I had thought it would be a doddle to get a visa for her brother (28 years old) to simply come and spend some time with us in at our home in NZ. However, instead we were both shocked at the pending refusal.

We applied for a 3 month stay. Would we be more likely to get a visa if the dates were shortened? (I guess not since that is easily changed back again).

I thought that I was responsible for his return to Thailand as his sponsor and we certainly had no illegitimate plans for him to overstay. It just seems so ludicrous and unfair.

We would be very grateful if any one has ideas to help. Now we have to wait until 4th Jan to contact NZIS after holidays. I'll check up here before then though if additional details will help.

Regards,

John.

[xen]

It happens a lot with visitor visas to Oz,and for no apparent reason , but it is your right to appeal the decision . It appears to be a lottery depending on who is managing your case file so an appeal will often get a different result because somebody else will examine your case.

It has happened to my ex-wifes mother a couple of times even though she had been to Oz many time before and always returned to Thailand by the due date. The times it happened to us we had to lodge a $10,000 bond. We did the same for my sister in law and that was for a few years but we were able to lodge it as a term deposit ,but only at a riduculously low interest rate.

It is common with tourist visas from Thailand and because he has no job to return to makes him fit an overstayer profile , especially if he doesn't have anything else to return to Thailand for. If You can show documentation that shows he has reason to return then you should present that.

But the main piece of advice i can give u is to make show he doesn't say anything he can't back up with documentation. In other words make sure he doesn't bullshit because that will stuff him up for a long time.

Best of luck with it .

[dr_Pat_Pong]

Without a 'compelling' reason for the to return to Thailand you have little to no hope. He has a history of unemployment, and is likely to be without resources or property.

[thaiozy]

really can`t see why they would think of him as an over stayer as half of kiwis certainly don`t stay there (so plenty of room) to busy exploiting other counties with their free ticket

[Svenn]

We were able to get a NZ tourist visa about a month ago, you can look at my story in the other current thread on this forum. She has no job or solid job history, no education, and only 30k baht in the bank at the time we applied. It took 6 weeks to get the visa back and apparently one of their officers called her up and chatted for a while. I'm American so it's a different story I guess, since neither of us have any connection to NZ. I didn't even tell them what dates we wanted to go, I just wrote in effect: "my wife would like to get a NZ tourist visa perhaps because we may travel there sometime but mainly because it will look good on her passport for a future US application." The NZ embassy seemed a bit irked at that, and just gave her a visa that would expire in Feb. Anyway, hope that's useful in some way.

[Johnnz]

Well, the NZIS branch office in Bangkok doesn't reopen until Jan 4, but we have submitted more documents detailing evidence he has incentives to return to Thailand before his permit expires. Hope it will be enough: Car ownership paper, and land ownership papers of 80 rai. As well as a health bank balance - just topped up a few days ago...

Will wait and see if it is enough. Otherwise, I suppose we have the right to appeal. If that happens I will have to go there and speak in person. But hopefully, fingers crossed, he will get it ... its going to be tight as we are booked to leave Jan 12th.

Thanks for all the tips and comments

[handydog]

Well, the NZIS branch office in Bangkok doesn't reopen until Jan 4, but we have submitted more documents detailing evidence he has incentives to return to Thailand before his permit expires. Hope it will be enough: Car ownership paper, and land ownership papers of 80 rai. As well as a health bank balance - just topped up a few days ago...

Will wait and see if it is enough. Otherwise, I suppose we have the right to appeal. If that happens I will have to go there and speak in person. But hopefully, fingers crossed, he will get it ... its going to be tight as we are booked to leave Jan 12th.

Thanks for all the tips and comments

current HP statementments may be a good thing to submit. it would show a financial requirement to return.

Topping up the bank balance a few days ago does not look good when they ask for a statement covering the last 3 months.

[Johnnz]

Well, for the record everyone, we did get a visa for him - of sorts. They refused to grant a visitor visa and istead offered a "conversion" to a limited purpose visa (3 month). This means he can not study at all and can't apply for a permit of a different type once he is in NZ. Well, at least he can come to visit which was always the main point.

Just made it in time to pick up the visa from Immigration yesterday. If you saw three people running all the way from Siam Interchange to All Seasons building yesterday (making collection time with three minutes to spare) it could well have been us!

Edited January 12, 2010 by Johnnz

[handydog]

Well, for the record everyone, we did get a visa for him - of sorts. They refused to grant a visitor visa and istead offered a "conversion" to a limited purpose visa (3 month). This means he can not study at all and can't apply for a permit of a different type once he is in NZ. Well, at least he can come to visit which was always the main point.

Just made it in time to pick up the visa from Immigration yesterday. If you saw three people running all the way from Siam Interchange to All Seasons building yesterday (making collection time with three minutes to spare) it could well have been us!

Seems the leaving the issueing of visas to the last minute is common. When my wife came to NZ last year... we had waited 3 1/2 months for a decision and the lady we were dealing with suggested it would be ready on the friday (day before flying out of Bkk).

It got the distinct feel that the thai workers in the department are not motivated to work at what would be normal speed and efficency of what is expected in farangland.

Unfortunitly this reflects badly on thier kiwi supervisiors. But maybe they have been in Thailand too long and have addopted the "mai pen rai" attitude.