JOINT ACCOUNT WITH SPOUSE IS BETTER OR COMPLICATED FOR POF

[mona247]

Hey All,

All of us know it is very clearly mentioned on the IRCC website that a joint account with spouse can be accepted in the family is travelling together.

https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/immigrate-canada/express-entry/documents/proof-funds.html

My situation is as follows-

I and my Spouse have 2 different Express entry profiles active in the pool in the at the moment with both indicating as spouse accompanying.
We both are in the process of finishing our PG diploma's by Feb 2020 and thus our CRS scores will end up rising to 450 and 460 respectively.

From 1 year my personal bank account has 1.5X times the required POF amount, However considering the current trend of CRS scores, in Quarter 1 next year if my spouse gets the ITA then the only option we have is, I will have to make a legal notarized affidavit mentioning my spouse has access to the funds in my personal account and I have no objection for the same.

The challenge we face is, we wish to avoid the notarized affidavit situation as the region we live in (UAE-DUBAI) the legal documents are made in Arabic and eventually we have to translate it to English. It is not straight forward to process.( expensive affair too)

Q1)I am contemplating making a new JOINT bank account with my spouse and transfer funds from my personal account into it in SEP 2019. We can wait for 6 months of bank statements to be ready before we file in the application. Now the point I read on various forums is that irrespective of whoever is the primary applicant, in case of the JOINT account the secondary applicant needs to provide a no objection letter mentioning the primary has access to the funds... Is this true?
If the answer is yes, it is a hassle again to get a translated English legal notarized no objection letter, which brings me back to square one.

Q2) Next question is if in case we receive an NOI for PNP while we wait for our CRS scores to go up by Quarter 1 of next year and If I have gone ahead with the joint account opening in SEP 2019 and closed my current personal account which has the 1.5X of the POF from 1 year, would it be cumbersome/ fishy to write LOE explaining to IRCC why I transferred funds from my own account into a Joint account?

Q3) What makes the ideal 6 months bank statement for a joint account. Is it fine if we just have the funds(30k CAD) lying in there and no Debit /Credit transactions happening in the account? Somewhere I read the account statement should look genuine showing off weekly or monthly expenses getting debited from it and some credits coming in for either one of us from our other bank accounts or cash deposits etc while maintaining the average balance over the required threshold POF limit.
Personally I would prefer to keep my weekly or monthly expenses debited off my other accounts and just maintain a clean Joint account with 30K CAD and not touch it for 6 months or more, would this make the VO think why are we not using the joint account at all ??

Perhaps if anyone has a better plan for us, would appreciate your suggestions.
Disclaimer - We both do not have additional funds to just park them in 2 separate individual personal accounts and have a quick fix to the dilemma.

Cheers!

 

[Fahadkazmi]

Hey All,

All of us know it is very clearly mentioned on the IRCC website that a joint account with spouse can be accepted in the family is travelling together.

https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/immigrate-canada/express-entry/documents/proof-funds.html

My situation is as follows-

I and my Spouse have 2 different Express entry profiles active in the pool in the at the moment with both indicating as spouse accompanying.
We both are in the process of finishing our PG diploma's by Feb 2020 and thus our CRS scores will end up rising to 450 and 460 respectively.

From 1 year my personal bank account has 1.5X times the required POF amount, However considering the current trend of CRS scores, in Quarter 1 next year if my spouse gets the ITA then the only option we have is, I will have to make a legal notarized affidavit mentioning my spouse has access to the funds in my personal account and I have no objection for the same.

The challenge we face is, we wish to avoid the notarized affidavit situation as the region we live in (UAE-DUBAI) the legal documents are made in Arabic and eventually we have to translate it to English. It is not straight forward to process.( expensive affair too)

Q1)I am contemplating making a new JOINT bank account with my spouse and transfer funds from my personal account into it in SEP 2019. We can wait for 6 months of bank statements to be ready before we file in the application. Now the point I read on various forums is that irrespective of whoever is the primary applicant, in case of the JOINT account the secondary applicant needs to provide a no objection letter mentioning the primary has access to the funds... Is this true?
If the answer is yes, it is a hassle again to get a translated English legal notarized no objection letter, which brings me back to square one.

Q2) Next question is if in case we receive an NOI for PNP while we wait for our CRS scores to go up by Quarter 1 of next year and If I have gone ahead with the joint account opening in SEP 2019 and closed my current personal account which has the 1.5X of the POF from 1 year, would it be cumbersome/ fishy to write LOE explaining to IRCC why I transferred funds from my own account into a Joint account?

Q3) What makes the ideal 6 months bank statement for a joint account. Is it fine if we just have the funds(30k CAD) lying in there and no Debit /Credit transactions happening in the account? Somewhere I read the account statement should look genuine showing off weekly or monthly expenses getting debited from it and some credits coming in for either one of us from our other bank accounts or cash deposits etc while maintaining the average balance over the required threshold POF limit.
Personally I would prefer to keep my weekly or monthly expenses debited off my other accounts and just maintain a clean Joint account with 30K CAD and not touch it for 6 months or more, would this make the VO think why are we not using the joint account at all ??

Perhaps if anyone has a better plan for us, would appreciate your suggestions.
Disclaimer - We both do not have additional funds to just park them in 2 separate individual personal accounts and have a quick fix to the dilemma.

Cheers!

Hi,
There is one other way for this too. Just add your spouse in your personal account and make it a joint account which has the required amount for POF.
No need to open new account or transfer funds to another account.

 

[lampbreaker]

There is no hard '6 month' rule. You just need to have the money available to you at the time you file the application. The reason they look at 6 month average balance is to make sure that you are not borrowing money in order to show it. So even if you have had the money only for 1 day and as long as you can document the source where it came from (gift, transfer from your own account, bonus payment, lottery winnings etc.), you are fine.

If the money is in your own account (and either of you are listed in the PR application), then no gift deed will be required.

 

[mona247]

There is no hard '6 month' rule. You just need to have the money available to you at the time you file the application. The reason they look at 6 month average balance is to make sure that you are not borrowing money in order to show it. So even if you have had the money only for 1 day and as long as you can document the source where it came from (gift, transfer from your own account, bonus payment, lottery winnings etc.), you are fine.

If the money is in your own account (and either of you are listed in the PR application), then no gift deed will be required.

Thanks the 6 month point is well understood now.

However referring to my question 3 again about how an ideal bank statement should be presented to VO, is it true to show off a few weekly/ monthly expenses etc or just a plain vanilla no transaction saving show off should be ok?

 

[lampbreaker]

Thanks the 6 month point is well understood now.

However referring to my question 3 again about how an ideal bank statement should be presented to VO, is it true to show off a few weekly/ monthly expenses etc or just a plain vanilla no transaction saving show off should be ok?

They don't care whether and how you spend your money, just that you have it debt free.

 

[mona247]

Hi,
There is one other way for this too. Just add your spouse in your personal account and make it a joint account which has the required amount for POF.
No need to open new account or transfer funds to another account.

Good point I thought that about..

I can't add my spouse on my personal account, my current bank doesn't allow me to do so as my spouse holds a personal account with the same bank.

We can cancel my spouse's personal account and retry convincing the bank to add my spouse on my existing account, but to make it simple I thought why not just go to another bank and just open a new joint account all together

 

[mona247]

They don't care whether and how you spend your money, just that you have it debt free.

Ok sounds good
What are your thoughts on Q1.
In case of the JOINT account the secondary applicant needs to provide a no objection letter mentioning the primary has access to the funds... Is this true or false?

From all my concerns mentioned above, do you suggest the joint account is better for our situation and it won't complicate stuff!!

 

[lampbreaker]

No, not needed. I think you are overthinking this. You can use your accounts as they are.

 

[mona247]

Thanks @lampbreaker

 

[mona247]

Some more suggestions for a few more members would be appreciated .

 

[mona247]

Hey @legalfalcon , seems like you're the most helpful around here

Could you read my first post and let me know your suggestions please!!

Regards

 

[legalfalcon]

Hey All,

All of us know it is very clearly mentioned on the IRCC website that a joint account with spouse can be accepted in the family is travelling together.

https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/immigrate-canada/express-entry/documents/proof-funds.html

My situation is as follows-

I and my Spouse have 2 different Express entry profiles active in the pool in the at the moment with both indicating as spouse accompanying.
We both are in the process of finishing our PG diploma's by Feb 2020 and thus our CRS scores will end up rising to 450 and 460 respectively.

From 1 year my personal bank account has 1.5X times the required POF amount, However considering the current trend of CRS scores, in Quarter 1 next year if my spouse gets the ITA then the only option we have is, I will have to make a legal notarized affidavit mentioning my spouse has access to the funds in my personal account and I have no objection for the same.

The challenge we face is, we wish to avoid the notarized affidavit situation as the region we live in (UAE-DUBAI) the legal documents are made in Arabic and eventually we have to translate it to English. It is not straight forward to process.( expensive affair too)

Q1)I am contemplating making a new JOINT bank account with my spouse and transfer funds from my personal account into it in SEP 2019. We can wait for 6 months of bank statements to be ready before we file in the application. Now the point I read on various forums is that irrespective of whoever is the primary applicant, in case of the JOINT account the secondary applicant needs to provide a no objection letter mentioning the primary has access to the funds... Is this true?
If the answer is yes, it is a hassle again to get a translated English legal notarized no objection letter, which brings me back to square one.

Q2) Next question is if in case we receive an NOI for PNP while we wait for our CRS scores to go up by Quarter 1 of next year and If I have gone ahead with the joint account opening in SEP 2019 and closed my current personal account which has the 1.5X of the POF from 1 year, would it be cumbersome/ fishy to write LOE explaining to IRCC why I transferred funds from my own account into a Joint account?

Q3) What makes the ideal 6 months bank statement for a joint account. Is it fine if we just have the funds(30k CAD) lying in there and no Debit /Credit transactions happening in the account? Somewhere I read the account statement should look genuine showing off weekly or monthly expenses getting debited from it and some credits coming in for either one of us from our other bank accounts or cash deposits etc while maintaining the average balance over the required threshold POF limit.
Personally I would prefer to keep my weekly or monthly expenses debited off my other accounts and just maintain a clean Joint account with 30K CAD and not touch it for 6 months or more, would this make the VO think why are we not using the joint account at all ??

Perhaps if anyone has a better plan for us, would appreciate your suggestions.
Disclaimer - We both do not have additional funds to just park them in 2 separate individual personal accounts and have a quick fix to the dilemma.

Cheers!

You are complicating the situation.

If an applicant’s spouse is accompanying, the applicant can show the funds held together in a joint account to meet the PoF requirement. However, to be able to show the funds for meeting the PoF requirement, held in an account under the spouse’s name only, the applicant must prove that they have access to the funds. This can me done by the spouse executing an affidavit affirming that the funds held in the spouse’s account can be used by the applicant for the purpose of meeting the PoF requirements.

Similarly, if an applicant has a joint account with their parent, then the parent will have to execute an affidavit affirming that the funds held in the joint account can be used by the applicant for the purpose of meeting the PoF requirements.

https://www.getgcms.com/blog/proof-funds-requirement-express-entry/

 

[mona247]

You are complicating the situation.

If an applicant’s spouse is accompanying, the applicant can show the funds held together in a joint account to meet the PoF requirement. However, to be able to show the funds for meeting the PoF requirement, held in an account under the spouse’s name only, the applicant must prove that they have access to the funds. This can me done by the spouse executing an affidavit affirming that the funds held in the spouse’s account can be used by the applicant for the purpose of meeting the PoF requirements.

Similarly, if an applicant has a joint account with their parent, then the parent will have to execute an affidavit affirming that the funds held in the joint account can be used by the applicant for the purpose of meeting the PoF requirements.

https://www.getgcms.com/blog/proof-funds-requirement-express-entry/

Thanks.. as per my point 1 in the first post making this affidavit itself is complicated.

As in my region the affidavit is made in Arabic and that too on plain piece of paper not even a legal stamp paper etc. And the next headace is English translation which again comes with just one stamp from a typing center only..
Basically it's not a straight forward process like in many other countries.

 

[Pal12]

You are complicating the situation.

If an applicant’s spouse is accompanying, the applicant can show the funds held together in a joint account to meet the PoF requirement. However, to be able to show the funds for meeting the PoF requirement, held in an account under the spouse’s name only, the applicant must prove that they have access to the funds. This can me done by the spouse executing an affidavit affirming that the funds held in the spouse’s account can be used by the applicant for the purpose of meeting the PoF requirements.

Similarly, if an applicant has a joint account with their parent, then the parent will have to execute an affidavit affirming that the funds held in the joint account can be used by the applicant for the purpose of meeting the PoF requirements.

https://www.getgcms.com/blog/proof-funds-requirement-express-entry/

Hi, I am PA and all our funds are in my husband's account. We were given 2 options by the bank 1. open a saving account in my name and transfer all his funds to this account. 2 The bank will add signatures to his account and issue me a Debit card? What would you suggest in my case? If we go with the second option what documents would be required precisely?

 

[legalfalcon]

Hi, I am PA and all our funds are in my husband's account. We were given 2 options by the bank 1. open a saving account in my name and transfer all his funds to this account. 2 The bank will add signatures to his account and issue me a Debit card? What would you suggest in my case? If we go with the second option what documents would be required precisely?

If your husband is accompanying, then IRCC clearly states:

If your spouse is coming with you, you can count money you have together in a joint account. You may be able to count money in an account under their name only, but you must prove you have access to the money.

All you need is an affidavit signed by your husband that he has no objection in your using the funds for the purpose of settlement in Canada. You do not have to do either of the options.

If you want to do something, then you can opt for option 1, but then again you may not meet the 6 months average balance and will have to show where the funds came from, for which you will have to show the money trail and your husband's account and last 6 months statements.

To read more on PoF see https://bit.ly/34fDLhJ

To read original source form IRCC, see https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/immigrate-canada/express-entry/documents/proof-funds.html