You might be confused as to whether or not you have working rights once you have a Life Partner or Spousal Visa. Both of these fall under the Relatives Temporary Permit category, but you can still add working rights. It doesn’t come automatically though. You first must have a job offer from a company. You need a work contract or a letter of motivation stating that the company wishes to hire you upon the outcome of you getting working rights added to you visa.

Once you have the job offer, you can contact us and we will provide you with a short, but new list of documents to fill out and we will lodge an entirely new application to revise the current spousal or life partner visa with the work endorsement. This requires your passport again and a small fee and the final result will show a 3 year visit visa that states on the bottom of the form “right to reside with SA spouse or life Partner and work at so and so company.” The reason it comes back as a visit visa is that Home Affairs doesn’t allow relatives category permits to have working rights.

If you change jobs, you need to undergo the process again as the working rights follow the job. If you need assistance or are not sure if you qualify to add working rights to your visa, give us a shout at New World Immigration.

sarah@nwisouthafrica.co.za

Home Affairs recently has proposed a new set of rules for foreign couples who want to wed in South Africa due to the high number of fraudulent marriages being reported each year. The Cape Times reported on Monday that in the five years until January 2012, there were about 8,883 fraudulent marriages. The plan suggests that foreign couples will now need be interviewed by an immigration officer. These questions would relate to how long the foreigner had been in the country and whether they had a valid permit, and how long they had been in the relationship.

Now if you look at the Home Affairs Site in their marriage section is states: If you are planning on getting married, you must:

•    ensure that you are legally allowed to marry
•    understand the legal consequences of a marriage, particularly that marriages in South Africa are automatically in community of property, unless a valid ante-nuptial contract has been entered into before the marriage, and
•    make sure that your marriage will comply with all the legal requirements for a valid marriage

Should you be unsure of any of these, legal counsel should be sought before the marriage is entered into. Then there is a section that says due to the large # of fraudulent marriages being reported each year, one must check the status of their marriage. “Due to the large number of fraudulent marriages reported to the Department of Home Affairs every year, a facility has been created for you to check your marital status at any time.” You will need your South African ID number in order to use this facility.” One must pay 10 rand each time they wish to check the status via SMS. Please contact us at New World Immigration if you have concerns and would like to make sure you hold the valid permits. We will keep up to date with any rule changes.

Sarah Farthing
021-555-0951