September 2018 newsletter
Registrar update
Thank you to you all who registered for the recent Webinar on Client engagement and initial assessments, it was great to have so many people attend. The team are still going through the questions raised and will answer them as soon as possible. If you missed this webinar there is still an opportunity to register for the one on 30 October.
Also , please take notice of the new licence certificates that will be issued from October. There is an example of what they will look like further in the newsletter.
IAA launches information campaign in India
Following a successful visit by New Zealand immigration officials to India last year, the Immigration Advisers Authority (IAA) has launched the next information campaign to ensure Indian residents living in, or looking to migrate to, New Zealand know to seek lawful immigration advice.
There is a continuing high level of interest into New Zealand from Indian communities and the IAA wants to ensure those who are looking to migrate to New Zealand know how and where to get the right immigration advice.
This is the third information campaign into India the IAA has run; the 2016 and 2017 campaigns together reaching nearly 1 million Facebook users and helping to generate an extra 76,000 website visits.
The campaign will promote our “Looking for a New Zealand Immigration Advice” checklist on the IAA website.
We will keep all Licenced Immigrations Advisers notified about the success of the campaign, which will run for four weeks over the months of September and October.
The IAA will continue to run further campaigns to targeted countries over the year, and we will keep you updated with more information about these.
Reference group
We held our second to last reference group meeting in August, with topics covered including: supervision, IAA communication initiatives, investigation issues and a presentation from ENZRA.
The reference group meeting minutes will shortly be available on our website.
Our final meeting of the year will be 24 October 2018.
New look Licence Certificates
From the beginning of October the format of Immigration Advisers Licence Certificates will be changing to the new look below:
2018 mandatory CPD
As part of your Continuing Professional Development (CPD) the IAA requires all New Zealand licensed advisers, including those who are Registered Migration Agents in Australia, to attend one webinar run by the IAA in 2018, by 31 December 2018.
This year, our webinars will focus on client engagement and initial assessments. Many complaints arise because client engagement processes have not been followed or because an adviser’s initial advice is not recorded in writing. Ensuring you have good engagement processes in place goes a long way to establishing a good client relationship and avoiding mismatched expectations.
Future IAA webinars for 2018 are scheduled as follows:
Client engagement and initial assessments
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing a link to join the webinar.
If you are not able to attend one of these webinars at the scheduled time you will be able to watch a video of the webinar after it is delivered.
You can play recordings of the following webinars that have already taken place.
Supervision – Play webinar(external link).
Client engagement and initial assessments – Play webinar(external link)
To view a webinar that has already taken place, you are required to register your name and email address. Please take a screenshot of your completed registration page for your CPD record before you click “submit”. We are able to verify that you have viewed the recording once you register.
All advisers need to understand their CPD obligations and we strongly encourage you to refresh your understanding by re-reading our CPD Toolkit.
Did you know...? Your written agreement must reflect how you will charge your client in practice
We have noticed many occasions where the payment terms and conditions in an adviser’s written agreement does not reflect how they are charging in practice. You must ensure that the payment terms and conditions in your written agreement accurately reflect how you do this.
For example, if your written agreement states your client will be charged the full fee on completion of the application, but instead you invoice your client the full fee at the time of signing the written agreement, then your written agreement should state that you will be taking fees in advance to be held in trust in your separate client account.
If the way in which the fees are to be charged changes during the course of the application you must ensure you obtain your client’s agreement in writing about this change.
Tribunal decisions
Reading Immigration Advisers Complaints and Disciplinary Tribunal decisions, or discussing them in your study group, will help develop your understanding of your professional responsibilities.
