Post
by scrudu » Fri Oct 03, 2008 9:43 am
Hi Stephen
Yes your fiance may marry you while on a tourist visa, and yes, she can stay on past her visa end date and apply for residency. The DoJ are not too impressed with this method of applying for residency so they are in no rush to handle such applications. This application will take probably 12-18 months to be processed.
If your then wife leaves after the marriage and applies for residency from her home country, this application will be processed within 6-8 weeks.
In both situations the onus will be on you to prove the legitimacy of your marriage. If your wife is applying from abroad, the lack of visits to the country before the marriage can count against her. That said, if you have solid proof of your visits to her country, these could also suffice.
This question has been asked many times before and there are many first hand reports of how it went on this forum. Please read other posts for more details.