New Zealand Projects International

As part of our commitment to helping our international clients gain access to some of the best property investments in New Zealand and the South Pacific we also help our clients gain residency through our very own registered immigration adviser.

International residents hoping to gain residency under the once onerous Investment scheme will be delighted to know that the New Zealand government has relaxed their entry criteria.

Our registered immigration adviser Paul Eggleton has announced that if you satisfy the following criteria you could well be successful in gaining New Zealand residency:

• If the principal applicant is under 65 years of age
• Has a minimum 3 years business experience in a recognised discipline
• Attains a minimum English written and oral language standard
• Be able to invest a minimum NZD1.5M in New Zealand for at least 4 years
• Has an additional NZD1.0M additional funds available to support themselves
• Satisfies character and health requirements
• Attains the points selection level

Other schemes including the Entrepreneur Plus programme allow applicants to invest lower amounts of capital as long as their investment creates a minimum of three additional new jobs for at least 2 years in a New Zealand domiciled business. Full details to be announced in October/November. Also the Professional Investor (investor 1) has no age or english level requirements, however the minimum investment level is NZD$10M.

We have made available to our clients a myriad of investment opportunities that may be suitable to fulfil the required investment criteria. Please contact us for further details.

A Day in the life of Paul Eggleton, our very own Registered Immigration Adviser...

Thirty years after immigrating to New Zealand, Paul Eggleton has built an unusual but thriving business helping others do the same.

Paul sorts out the paperwork for prospective migrants, tourists, students and temporary workers.

Paul is the country's only mobile immigration consultant and working in Northland means he regularly visits clients on their boats or even at the beach.

A typical day begins with checking the emails at 7.30am. Phones are switched on at 8am, when he begins preparing a client submission to the NZ Immigration Service. At 9am Paul leaves for Whangarei, where he's preparing a work permit application at 10.30am. A new client is signed up for residency at 11am, followed, at noon, by a final meeting with a local employer about immigration accreditation's.

At 1pm Paul meets an electorate secretary for a local MP to discuss an immigration problem a constituent is having. At 1.30pm Paul helps a local employer with an employment agreement for a prospective migrant. At 2.30pm he's in Hikurangi, arranging an indefinite returning-resident visa application. By 4pm Paul's back at home, where he attends to urgent emails before knocking off around 7pm.

That's not the end of his day though. As the local Justice of the Peace he's likely to spend the evening signing forms for people and later reading up on new immigration law.

Paul's long and varied career began in the British police force. Once in New Zealand, he was employed in sales jobs before joining the Labour Department in the 1980s. There, he worked in corporate training "before Rogernomics canned the Industrial Training Service".

In his next role, with the Immigration Department, he was setting up early computer systems and, in 1987, introducing the country's first automated visa-issuing systems.

During the Gulf War, Paul set up forensic document examination units in Auckland and at Auckland Airport before moving on to teach immigration law both in New Zealand and at New Zealand immigration offices overseas, including in Beijing, Manila, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong, Sydney and Suva.

Paul's favourite parts of his job involve dealing with people of diverse cultures and backgrounds and getting that permit which makes their dreams come true.

"I get a buzz from reading a news report of a success story or noting a particular promotion and being able to say, hey, that's one of my clients," he said.

A useful site to visit is the Immigration Advisers Authority located here.