Immigration FAQs: IMMagine New Zealand Category

About IMMagine Immigration Questions:

The range of New Zealand immigration services that we provide includes, but is not limited to the following:

Eligibility Assessment - An assessment of your eligibility for various New Zealand temporary and/or permanent visas or permits.

Service provider referrals - Assisting where possible with referral to good Removal/Shipping companies for door-to-door transportation for client's furniture and personal effects. Introducing clients to experienced lawyers, accountants, doctors, real estate and home rental agents, employment consultants and insurance brokers.

We even open bank accounts for you!!

The final quote will reflect the complexity, time and challenge of the application. We do not charge per person but per application.

We will only quote a fee once we have clearly established that you have a case which we believe can be successfully presented to the New Zealand Government and we have taken account of the potential difficulties and time issues involved. No two cases are the same and no case is ever straight forward. When dealing with a bureaucracy nothing is ever "straightforward" or "simple" as much as the Government and Immigration New Zealand would like you to believe (or you would like to believe).  Every application has the potential to fail given the complexities involved even if on the surface you cannot recognise the dangers.

All fees and terms of business are confirmed in writing in advance of your becoming our client and will usually be accompanied by our performance guarantee. We do expect payment of the first part of our fees prior to any instructions being issued and this is usually half to a third of the total fee with the balance being paid off over the following months. Fees are commonly paid by credit card, telegraphic transfer or bank draft.

Two answers.

1. We are licensed professionals who have spent many years getting to the point where the advice we provide is bankable for you.
2. In life you get what you pay for.

We do not visit the Doctor for free. Or our Accountant, Dentist or Lawyer for free. We don't expect to. We are sure you don't either. We can only offer you the level of expertise and service that we do because you buy the time and expertise we have. We do not dabble in the immigration business, we are committed to it. We deal with only one country and that is New Zealand and we know it and its immigration law better than anyone. We are committed and successful licensed professionals.

This is one of the biggest decisions you will make in your life and resettlement is usually the most difficult process you will face in your life. Believe us - many of us at IMMagine New Zealand Immigration have been through the process ourselves and it wasn't easy. You therefore owe it to yourself and your family to ensure you get the most accurate  and up to date advice on your eligibility and issues such as our lifestyle, cost of living, employability and education. You wont get that for free no matter how hard you try.

In return for this fee your situation will be assessed by one of our senior team  of MMagine New Zealand Immigration. You will not be dealing with unlicensed, junior or inexperienced staff who have little practical knowledge of the process. You will not be dealing with people who are just starting out in the business either.

Our commitment is to leave "no stone unturned" in your assessment and for that reason they can take several days to complete and it may well involve extensive exchanges between us as we seek more information we can use to help you meet the entry criteria or explore all the options.

The fee we charge does not begin to cover all our time required to prepare it but acts to identify those that are serious about the process. The reality is emigration will cost you many thousands of dollars through airfares, shipping, local Government and New Zealand Government fees etc and we learned long ago that those unprepared to part with NZ$250 (approx US$150) by way of a written report to assess their eligibility (or a lesser fee for a one on one consultation) are unlikely to be able to bear the cost of successful emigration or may not be really serious about it.

We only want to work with those that are serious and committed to exploring every angle and every issue associated with this life changing decision.

We are sure our assessment and follow up will answer many of your questions such as how long the process takes, the costs, the issues confronting you and whatever else you need to know.

We look forward to being of assistance to you in this first vital step.

We have a simple philosophy in business and life. We will treat you as would like you to treat us if we were in your position. As many IMMAgine Immigration employees are migrants themselves we know what you face if your dreams and expectations are shattered. With more than 70% of our work coming from referrals we believe this philosophy has stood the test of time.

We are therefore quite happy to put our reputation and experience on the line by offering a performance guarantee on most categories we deal with. This means if you don't get the result you were expecting and we said we would deliver so long as the conditions of the guarantee were met we will refund at least half of our consulting fees. In return we ask that clients accept the responsibility for being both honest with us and committed to the process of filing their application. Our performance guarantee is designed to protect both you and ourselves.

If we are retained to file an application and the client changes their mind we are not obliged under our terms of business to refund any of the fee. This is to ensure we are only dealing with highly committed clients.

Although the guarantees offered may be slightly different in different situations generally they will record that if Immigration New Zealand declines the residence application clients will be refunded at least half of our consulting fee. In the event of the application being declined no refund will generally have been offered on our consulting fees if the application was declined (or not filed) for any one of the following reasons:

1. Failure to disclose a medical condition, failure to meet an Acceptable Standard of Health;
2. An undisclosed criminal conviction of any person included in the application.
3. The presentation of any false or fraudulent documentation or information.
4. Failure to provide us with independetly verifiable evidence of exact dates of employment and job description by way of official service records issued by each employer.
5. Owing to a change in Government residence policy prior to or after the filing of the residence visa/permit application.

In the unlikely event that an application is declined (we have a success rate better than 99%) for any of the reasons above clients are not be entitled to any refund of our disbursements or Government application fees. The guarantee does not extend to all categories of applications but will be clearly explained and agreed by both the client and ourselves before any money changes hands.

Of course nobody posts bad references on their website or in their marketing material and we have been doing this work for long enough to know that you cant please all your customers all the time and sometimes your customers just dont understand the complexity of the process and cannot comprehend that bureaucracy in a first world country could be as obstructive and frustrating as the Immigration New Zealand can be. However we are very confident we keep the vast majority of our clients happy the majority of the time.

Here are what some of them have taken the time to write to us (there really are a lot more but modesty prevents us!) - Click here.

We will happily supply references to anyone who wants them.

Among our major corporate clients over the years have been Deloittes, KPMG, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Microsoft, PA Consulting Group, TMP Consulting among other multinationals and major New Zealand companies.

All our staff are either fully licensed, provisionally licensed or if new to the industry working under the direct supervision of a licensed Consultant while they work to achieve full licensed status.

For your own protection do not work with anyone who is not licensed or working under the supervision of someone experienced and qualified who is.