Signing application on minor dependents behalf
- Thread starter Montut
- Start date
Are there no specific instructions?
Anyway, I think the idea is for you to sign your name. You could, for greater certainty, add in brackets after your name, the child's name, so that it would look something like this: Signed: John Doe (parent). Or John Doe (for Bob Doe).
Thanks for your response. Very Helpful ! No, there are no specific recommendations around it.
That is incorrect information.
My child’s application was returned when I signed my own name last year.
I resent the application and signed with my child’s name and the application was accepted and almost approved now.
Thanks for sharing the experience @andrew3081. I have already submitted my application now. I signed it as " XYZ ( On behalf of ABC) ", where XYZ is my name and ABC is my son's name. Let's see what happens with my application. Can you please tell me how long after submitting the application was it returned in your case? Also, did they specifically mention the reason of returning the application ?
Another concern with my application was the form Declaration From Non-Accompanying Parent/Guardian For Minors Immigrating To Canada (IMM 5604). I filled this form manually and uploaded the scanned copy in the application after getting it stamped with public notary. For some strange reasons, the print out of the filled form was coming out blank. I tried it with multiple ways but no luck. Not sure if they would accept it. Do you have any insights to it?
This was what was given as reason for the return the application the first time “A parent or legal guardian must sign on behalf of a dependent child under the age of 18
when a signature for this person is required.”
For me, it took them 2 months to return my application first time.
When I resubmit the application, they gave me AOR in around 1.5 months.. and this was end of last year.
I didn’t fill out IMM5604 so I don’t know much about it.
I am not convinced of its incorrectness.
This is not a matter of first impression on this forum, viz.,
https://www.canadavisa.com/canada-immigration-discussion-board/threads/signing-consent-and-declaration-for-dependent-child-application.751857/
https://www.canadavisa.com/canada-immigration-discussion-board/threads/child-sponsorship-signing-on-his-behalf.825963/
https://www.canadavisa.com/canada-immigration-discussion-board/threads/question-about-imm5713-use-of-family-representative.172403/#post-2706160
In all of 5 minutes of research, I turned up many examples supporting my view. The foregoing are but 3 of a long list. So, I'll not resile from my suggestion.
I also turned up many sources like this:
https://grammarusage.com/sign-letter-on-behalf-of-someone-else/
The above source includes, as one example: "If you're an assistant signing a letter for your boss, you can use 'p.p.' before your signature." So, the advice is to use the writer's own signature, with the p.p to show it's on behalf of someone else. I submit that a device such as p.p. is not needed in the matter under consideration, given the language of the IRCC, which you have quoted thus:
“A parent or legal guardian must sign on behalf of a dependent child under the age of 18 when a signature for this person is required.”
If that instruction is followed, there should be no need for the addition of p.p. or anything else other than the parent's signature. That is because of the mandatory wording requiring the parent to sign. The IRCC will know you signed on the kid's behalf, without being told that you did so. It will know that you followed the directive.
Although there might be some latent ambiguity in the words “A parent or legal guardian must sign on behalf of a dependent child ...", I am reinforced in my own view of the matter since, if the parent simply signed the child's name, how would the IRCC know that the instruction was followed? If the child's name alone appears, then maybe it was affixed by the child and not the parent, which would be wrong. The only assurance that it was done correctly is given when it's the name of the parent that appears.
I recognize you have related to us that your application was bounced for having committed the cardinal sin of signing your name. I'll accept that indeed it was. But I am not sure that makes it right. It could happen (hard to believe, I know), that visa officers sometimes make mistakes. So, in the absence of something more definitive, I'll stand by what I said. I did not couch what I said in language suggesting it was the final word on the topic. That's why I asked about any IRCC instruction being offered. The OP said there was none and I ventured my own view without a guarantee of correctness. I think I made that clear.
I am convinced with your reasoning, and thus used my name with extra info in brackets (on behalf of.....). Let's see how the officer takes this into consideration. I love this forum, and people like you who are such a big help !
Can you please respond if you have any idea about my below query
"Another concern with my application was the form Declaration From Non-Accompanying Parent/Guardian For Minors Immigrating To Canada (IMM 5604). I filled this form manually and uploaded the scanned copy in the application after getting it stamped with public notary. For some strange reasons, the print out of the filled form was coming out blank. I tried it with multiple ways but no luck. Not sure if they would accept it. Do you have any insights to it? "
I have some ideas on that score.
When we were applying for my sponsorship/wife's PR application, we encountered a similar difficulty with one form, so we wrote an explanatory note. Here's what we said, in part:
We were unable to digitally sign Form imm532, so we printed it, scanned it and each of us managed to sign manually and to capture an image of the form pages, with one or both signatures, as required. We hope this is acceptable, even if not ideal. We have uploaded the signed pages, 3, 4 and 8 and they are attached as part of the "Supporting Documentation".
I guess the IRCC found our approach acceptable. We have never heard anything to suggest that it was not and my wife is now in Canada as a PR, so that is a good indicator that there was no quarrel with the way we improvised.
The examples you quoted are either from a few years ago or 10 years ago. I had first hand experience with IRCC regarding this same issue in late 2023 which is only a few months ago. Maybe IRCC changed its internal policies recently? Who knows. Sure it is possible my case officer made a mistake, but I guess it will take a few rejections to show up on this forum to see if my rejection was error or not.
When I first applied, I signed with my name and the application was rejected. The rejection letter was pretty clear that I had to sign my child’s name and I was correct as the application was accepted and approved.
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I've been reluctant to say much on this because as long as I've been paying attention, IRCC has been pretty poor at communicating what is required for signatures, and not much better at applying consistently; and that combination in my view leads to unfairness, in that the impact of innocent errors in signing can have some serious consequences (certainly in terms of delays).
But I guess we have to deal with this.
My guess on this topic is that the answer is due to the electronic signature aspect, and I'm going to guess (note: repeating the guess) part is that you are correct and the requirement now is to type* the child's name exactly as elsewhere on the documents - and that IRCC's requirement is now driven by that electronic signature aspect.
So yes - it seems to be a change, and a significant one - at least in the sense that it departs from common practice elsewhere and for signed documents.
One important caveat with the *type note above: I remain unconvinced that IRCC always accepts such forms when simply typed as signature, and - au contraire - always seems to accept with some kind of wet ink signatures. My limited experience is of course with paper applications, where the proven effective method for apps where couples were apart seemed to be print, sign, scan and back. Oh, and my quasi-legal experiences (that is interacting with legal processes for thigns like signing contracts and notices, ie I am not a lawyer) lead me to believe that you should not do a 'wet ink' signature under someone else's name - you sign your own name with 'for' or 'on behalf of' etc.
So where wet ink concerned ie. where you're not filling out a form online but submitting a scan where they might reasonably expect a signature to be present, I don't have an answer. Personally I'd take a wild stab and say type the child's name and initial in a non-obvious vague letters way (i.e. that no-one could say that these are not the initials of the child's name) - on assumption that no-one checks initials. This is a silly distinction that I cannot defend in any logical way except that I am pretty sure it would work.
So to sum up: my guess - that I think is consistent with experience noted - is that because the 'electronic signatures' instructions says that typing the applicant's name (and remember, the child is the applicant in this case even if an adult is signing on behalf of the child) constitutes the signature [and avoids the thorny topic of whether it's actually the applicant's signature or the guardian's], then what we should do is type the child's name.
Hope this helps. Again, a guess, albeit an educated one.
It really should not matter, 3 years ago or 10 years ago. If the IRCC instruction 10 years ago was to "sign on behalf of the child" that should carry the same meaning then and now. But, maybe not in the strange world of the IRCC.
Anyway, the OP has submitted in the form I suggested and we'll see what happens. But this is why I asked the OP in the first place about instructions. It seems that what the IRCC means by signing on behalf of the child has caused confusion and uncertainty for many years. It would be very simple for the forms to say, simply, sign the kid's name, or use your name, as the case may be.
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it is probably safe to sign using the child’s name anyways as comparing signing using your own name since the instructions say that parents/guardians will need to sign for the minor child.