common law or conjugal partner?

[ryanruben]

Hi everyone, I have a question, please please help.
My partner and I have been living in Canada for past 14 months. However there was 1.5 month he went back to his home country due to Canadian visa issues. I am preparing documents to sponsor him. My questions is are we common-law partner or conjugal partner? For my understanding common law partner have to be living together CONTINUOUSLY for 12 months with Short Absence allowed. I coundnt find exact definition of short absence. Please kindly help. Thank you.

 

[scylla]

You have no chance of success with conjugal since you clearly face no immigration barriers for common law.

You will need to apply as common law. You'll need to start counting the year from the time your partner returned to Canada from his 1.5 month trip back to his home country. So depending on what the trip happened, you may still need to spend more time living together before you can apply.

 

[ryanruben]

Hi Scylla, thank you for your reply. Can you elaborate on the 'immigration barrier' you mentioned please.
Also, I want to add that my partner was forced to return to home country because his Canadian visitor visa expired. And we are same sex partners from a country same sex is not allowed to get married.

 

[scylla]

Immigration barrier would be a situation where your partner cannot get a TRV or work permit or study permit approved to come to Canada (however your partner has); where you cannot get married anywhere (you could have gotten married while the two of you were in Canada); and where you cannot go to your partner's country to live there for a year to become common law.

Your partner was able to come to Canada and you could have easily married here - so no immigration barriers.

 

[Rob_TO]

I coundnt find exact definition of short absence. Please kindly help. Thank you.

1.5 months is probably beyond the scope of "short" absence. However ultimately this it at the discretion of the visa officer that processes you. With this gap in cohabitation, you would face a very high chance that your common-law claim will be rejected.

As mentioned above, you are better off applying 12 months after he returned to Canada to make it a true continuous 12 months with no breaks longer than a few weeks. Or to get married and then apply.

You do not qualify for a conjugal app.

 

[ryanruben]

Thank you Scylla and Rob-To. Both of you explained this issue really well. Thank you.
During that 1.5 month absence. I went back to home country visit him for 0.5 month. So, technically, he was by himself 1 month. I just called CIC call center twice and spoke with 2 different agents. One of them said it is fine. The other one said It would be up to the visa officer. It seems there is no way to get confirmed before submitting. I am still thinking should we wait or submit.. ahh tough call.

 

[scylla]

Thank you Scylla and Rob-To. Both of you explained this issue really well. Thank you.
During that 1.5 month absence. I went back to home country visit him for 0.5 month. So, technically, he was by himself 1 month. I just called CIC call center twice and spoke with 2 different agents. One of them said it is fine. The other one said It would be up to the visa officer. It seems there is no way to get confirmed before submitting. I am still thinking should we wait or submit.. ahh tough call.

Generally it seems that if a separation is under three week - then it's not considered as a break in the common law year of cohabitation. If it's more - then CIC generally classifies it as a break and expects you to start counting again from scratch. But as said, there's no hard or fast rule and it's entirely up to the officer processing your file. Is your partner in Canada with you now?

 

[canadianwoman]

You won't get a definite answer from the call centre about whether the break is too long because really it is up to the visa officer. 6 weeks is, I would say, definitely too long. Just one month is questionable. However, for it to be a break of just one month, you would need very good proof you two were together for the two-week vacation. If you don't have this, do not apply yet. For proof, I would expect that hotel receipts with both your names would be good enough.

I would wait until you have 12 months cohabitation after this 6-week period. If you apply now, the processing might be delayed while the visa officer tries to decide if the break is too long. The visa might well be rejected for this reason. Applying later might result in faster processing.

 

[optimaxx]

Hi everyone, I have a question, please please help.
My partner and I have been living in Canada for past 14 months. However there was 1.5 month he went back to his home country due to Canadian visa issues. I am preparing documents to sponsor him. My questions is are we common-law partner or conjugal partner? For my understanding common law partner have to be living together CONTINUOUSLY for 12 months with Short Absence allowed. I coundnt find exact definition of short absence. Please kindly help. Thank you.

Yes, i also believe your application is considered a common-law partner. In addition, you are required now to apply as common-law while waiting a minimum of one year from the date he returned to Canada.

please note that you can still need more time living mutually before you make the application.