In the last few months there had been a sudden spike in the refusal of partnership based visa application by Immigration New Zealand because of which the couples who were in arranged marriages and had not lived together for long because of the recent marriage with a New Zealand citizen or a resident were under lot of stress. Despite the fact that the marriage took place, had social recognition and even where the financial interdependence existed, those applications were refused as the couple did not fulfil the instruction of living together which is common in arranged marriages from Indian subcontinent.
To address this issue of living together there have been changes to the existing culturally arranged marriage visitor visa category. This category is for people who would like to visit New Zealand to marry a New Zealand citizen or a resident. This category did not previously cover the people in already culturally arranged marriages where the marriages took place outside of New Zealand.
Now this change under culturally arranged marriages visa category allows a visitor visa to be granted to individuals who are already into an arranged marriage. It does not matter where the marriage took place. That means individuals who had a culturally arranged marriage outside of New Zealand may now be eligible for the visa. So now the couples who are already married outside of New Zealand and do not complete the living together criteria will be eligible to apply under this new changes.