Unmarried Partners Requirements/Process

[guppy]

I have been living in the UK 21 months now with my English partner, while I was on a student visa. We are planning to soon head to NZ for a year as my visa is running out. While there we want to apply for an unmarried partner visa for my return. Several questions on this: Any ideas on processing time, and if it is possible to get an inperson appt overseas? Also how soon before we come back to England could/should I apply? Biggest concern is how they define 'relationship similar to marriage' . We will have been together 3.5 years by the time we come back, but because we originally met in Australia we had to be apart for 4 mnths after the first few months of meeting while I got a visa sorted out to come to england. Since coming to England we've spent 4 months living w/ his parents and now 17 mnths together (just us). Does anyone have experience/thoughts on whether this, coupled with the extra 12 months we're expecting to spend in NZ, will be enough to count as 'similar to marriage'? Apart from this, though we do actually share everything financial, it is all in seperate names, so none of the joint investments, bank accounts that are suggested in the app form guidance notes...
advice please? cheers

[toby]

Hey. Ok..

In Australia (so possibly the same for NZ) you can apply in person. I went to the British consulate where they offered a same day application for WHM. Pretty sure other visas were being processed at the same time.

Pretty sure you'd be able to apply as soon as you arrived, although not sure what visas you can transfer to UPV with in country. Hence if you came as a vistor, you might not be able to apply for UPV in the country.

The other thing is, probably good to wait until you have employment / permnament accomodation - before applying.

We had no problems, we had spent 1 year in Australia, 3 months travelling together and 9 months in London when we applied we just met the 2 year requirement, including travelling time which was after the time we started living together and had no problems.