Complain about a licensed immigration adviser
If you feel that you or someone you know has had an unacceptable experience with a licensed immigration adviser, please let us know by making a complaint.
Make a complaint
It is important that you know there is no cost to make complaints, and making a complaint will not impact your immigration status in any way.
Before you make a complaint
- Anyone can make a complaint - you do not need to be the person who received the immigration advice in order to make a complaint.
- You do not need to be in New Zealand when you make your complaint. It can be submitted from anywhere.
- Complaints can be made at any time, however if the person is no longer an immigration adviser, your complaint must be made within 2 years of when they stopped being one.
- You will need to provide detailed information about what happened, include supporting evidence and provide your contact details - by law, you cannot make an anonymous complaint.
- As part of the process, the licensed immigration adviser that you are making a complaint about will be informed that you have made a complaint.
- We aim to complete 80% of complaints within 95 working days of receiving them. The duration may vary and can be impacted based on whether the matter is sent to the Immigration Advisers Complaint and Disciplinary Tribunal. If that happens, your complaint will follow the Tribunal’s own processes and timelines.
What you can complain about
You can complain about a licensed immigration adviser(external link) on a number of grounds including:
- Negligence – they did not do what I expected of someone qualified to give immigration advice.
- Incompetence – they did not meet the Immigration Advisers Competency Standards.
- Incapacity – they were physically or mentally unable to give proper immigration advice.
- Dishonest or misleading behaviour – they did not tell the truth, or they led you to have an incorrect impression or belief.
- Breach of Code of Conduct – they did not adhere to The Licensed Immigration Advisers Code of Conduct.
Our complaints process flowchart shows what happens when we receive a complaint about a licensed immigration adviser.
After you've made a complaint
- Once you have made your complaint, we will review it to make sure it has the correct information. If it does, we’ll assign an investigator, who may also contact you with updates or questions about the complaint.
- You cannot withdraw a complaint that you have made against a licensed immigration adviser. You may however contact us to say that you no longer support the complaint.
- It is important that you know that we may decide that we do not need to take your complaint further. This is covered in section 45(1)(c) of the Immigration Advisers Licensing Act 2007, where it mentions trivial or inconsequential matters(external link).
Read more about why we might not carry out an investigation. - If we carry out an investigation, upon completion of it we’ll decide to either:
- close the complaint. If this occurs, we’ll communicate with you to explain why it was closed; or
- refer the complaint to the Immigration Advisers Complaint and Disciplinary Tribunal. If the complaint is upheld, sanctions may be imposed upon the licensed immigration adviser, such as censure, fines, compensation, further training or a change to the adviser’s license.
- If we have closed your complaint, you can appeal this decision to the Immigration Advisers Complaint and Disciplinary Tribunal(external link).
If we refer your complaint to the Tribunal, you cannot appeal the decision that the Tribunal makes. The only right of appeal is for the immigration adviser that the complaint is about, who may appeal against any sanctions imposed.
There may be other organisations who can deal with your complaint. For example, the Disputes Tribunal of New Zealand(external link) if the issue is about contracts.
Reasons why we may not take your complaint further
We may decide that we do not need to take your complaint further. This is covered in section 45(1)(c) of the Immigration Advisers Licensing Act 2007 and is referred to as a "trivial or inconsequential" matter.
If this occurs, and your complaint has been deemed a "trivial or inconsequential" matter, the things that we will have considered are:
- the consequences (or lack thereof) of the immigration adviser’s misconduct for the complainant/visa applicant, particularly any financial loss or adverse immigration outcome
- whether the misconduct by the immigration adviser was deliberate or through error/carelessness
- the immigration adviser’s response to the situation that gave rise to the complaint, and whether they rectified the issue at the time
- whether the misconduct is of a technical/administrative nature
- whether the outcome of the matters would have been similar if the misconduct had not happened
- any mitigating factors for the immigration adviser’s misconduct, such as health issues or matters that the immigration adviser could not have reasonably foreseen
- previous decisions by the Immigration Advisers Complaints and Disciplinary Tribunal on similar misconduct
- the length of time since the events in the complaint happened.
Regardless of whether we take your complaint further, we appreciate you taking the time to make a complaint. Every complaint that is made helps us deliver better outcomes for immigrants to New Zealand.