Common-Law Outland Question

[Celcius]

My girlfriend and I have been living together for the past two-years. I am a Canadian Citizen and we are looking to apply for a Permanent Residence via for her.

However, she would like to apply for the visa from Outland (Japan, which I believe the Philippines is the visa office for her.)

My question is, if she does an Outland application, does she have to be in Japan to submit her application, can we submit while we are in Canada together?

If she has to go to Japan to submit her application, will that affect our common-law status. We will still be "living" together, but she will obviously have to be in another country for a small amount of time. How does this affect our common-law status?

 

[spinning_sponsor]

You can live inside of Canada and apply outland. Doing so means your partner won't be forced to stay in Canada the entire duration.

Also from everything I have heard, after you apply, you can live separately, as the common-law 1 year of cohabitation has already been met. For example, My common-law partner and I just applied as outland, but she is going back to the USA for several months to work while the application is in process and I remain in Canada.

 

[Celcius]

You can live inside of Canada and apply outland. Doing so means your partner won't be forced to stay in Canada the entire duration.

Also from everything I have heard, after you apply, you can live separately, as the common-law 1 year of cohabitation has already been met. For example, My common-law partner and I just applied as outland, but she is going back to the USA for several months to work while the application is in process and I remain in Canada.

That's great news. So far, the only issue I feel that might come up is that our interview will have to take place at the visa office of the office we applied to, so in our case we would have to go to Manilla for our interview. Any other issues I need to be aware of?

I am slightly worried that if we send in our application from Canada for an Outland application it will seem weird, but from what you are saying, that is common practice?

 

[MilesAway]

It is quite common, and if you read the inland guide, CIC explicitly says that you can apply outland to take advantage of the faster processing times.

 

[spinning_sponsor]

From everything I've read on this forum over the past several months, it's extremely common, and I agree it seems weird that you can apply as outland from within Canada. Inland means the applicant is confined to Canada for the duration of the application, which can be years, and they may not even be able to work until Stage 1 is complete, which is upwards of 12 months (more than most outland processing times in total).

Interview location will depend on your country-specific guide, likely.