Advice Needed on Wedding Delayed by Covid.

[joryhagen]

Hello everyone, my fiancee (Turkish) and I (Canadian) were planning to get married this year, then apply for Canadian permanent residency under a family sponsorship. We've decided to postpone the wedding by a year until the covid situation is more clear and we know everyone will be able to attend. We were thinking of applying beforehand as a common law relationship, as we've been living together for five years.
We want to get legally married before the application is concluded for cultural reasons. We were wondering if:
1) would getting married while our common law application is under review be a problem
2) Would it be an issue if her last name changed so it no longer matches the application.
3) Does anyone recommend we do/don't follow this course of action

 

[scylla]

Hello everyone, my fiancee (Turkish) and I (Canadian) were planning to get married this year, then apply for Canadian permanent residency under a family sponsorship. We've decided to postpone the wedding by a year until the covid situation is more clear and we know everyone will be able to attend. We were thinking of applying beforehand as a common law relationship, as we've been living together for five years.
We want to get legally married before the application is concluded for cultural reasons. We were wondering if:
1) would getting married while our common law application is under review be a problem
2) Would it be an issue if her last name changed so it no longer matches the application.
3) Does anyone recommend we do/don't follow this course of action

1) No issue.
2) If possible, I would hold off with name changes until the application is approved.
3) Makes sense to me to move ahead with the common law application.

 

[joryhagen]

1) No issue.
2) If possible, I would hold off with name changes until the application is approved.
3) Makes sense to me to move ahead with the common law application.

Thanks so much! You've helped us a lot

 

[armoured]

Hello everyone, my fiancee (Turkish) and I (Canadian) were planning to get married this year, then apply for Canadian permanent residency under a family sponsorship. We've decided to postpone the wedding by a year until the covid situation is more clear and we know everyone will be able to attend. We were thinking of applying beforehand as a common law relationship, as we've been living together for five years.
We want to get legally married before the application is concluded for cultural reasons. We were wondering if:
1) would getting married while our common law application is under review be a problem
2) Would it be an issue if her last name changed so it no longer matches the application.
3) Does anyone recommend we do/don't follow this course of action

1) No, not a problem.
2) ...
3) Five years living together as common law should be fine.

Five years cohabitating + marriage is an even simpler application. You could consider civil marriage in near term and wedding celebration whenever you wish; but that's a personal/family/cultural thing.

 

[joryhagen]

1) No, not a problem.
2) ...
3) Five years living together as common law should be fine.

Five years cohabitating + marriage is an even simpler application. You could consider civil marriage in near term and wedding celebration whenever you wish; but that's a personal/family/cultural thing.

Thanks so much for the information!

 

[armoured]

Thanks so much for the information!

If you do go common law, pay attention to the documentation required to demonstrate cohabitation. While should not be an issue given five years together, it is important to demonstrate fully that it is cohabitation in a single household (leases, bank accounts, shared expenses, etc). In contrast applying as married, this information is considered as demonstration of the genuineness of the relationship.

 

[claurianta]

A change to married last name is not an issue. My wife applied with her maiden name. It took 11 months for her home country to process the paperwork to change the name on her passport. As soon as she had the new passport with new name, we sent a copy to IRCC via the webform and they updated the info in her application within a couple weeks. After that, all IRCC communications were in her married name. It did not delay the application.