Common law partner evidence

[DiNaV]

Are you the sponsor or the person trying to obtain PR in Canada? Which of you is the Canadian citizen/PR? If you're the sponsor (Canadian citizen/PR sponsoring his/her spouse to come to Canada permanently) your spouse would be the primary applicant (the person who wishes to obtain PR for Canada). For immigration purposes, your spouse would not be your dependent (that would be if your spouse has a dependent child and wants to bring them along to Canada). Your only options would be to sponsor your partner as a common-law partner, or get married and apply as married. Once you establish common-law for a year and have concrete proof that you lived together for that year and established common-law, then you could return to Canada alone if you wanted to during the process and have your spouse stay in their home country. If you wanted to move while you are still gathering proof of common-law during that year with your spouse, your spouse would have to go with you and live at the same address as you to continue proving that year of common-law (your spouse would need to enter Canada as a visitor for this). If you're the principal applicant (the person trying to immigrate) then just reverse what I said.

Sorry, I will just clear the confusion.

I am the primary & only applicant applying for PR in Canada just now.

My partner and I are living together, and not married yet, so have applied as "Single".

Now if I do get ITA and hopefully the PR too, how do I manage to take my common-law partner along with me to Canada? OR if I cannot take along then my other option is to sponsor my common-law partner after I settle down in Canada?

 

[MilesAway]

You must declare your partner. You are common-law, not single. If you do not declare them, you will NEVER be able to sponsor them, and you will also be at risk of losing your own PR by lying on the forms.

 

[canadianwoman]

Suppose I move to Canada alone as a primary applicant and then sponsor my partner on basis of common-law-partner grounds, will it work? Or do we move together as primary & dependent that will be more beneficial. Sorry, if I am sounding dumb, but I am just so confused at this unfortunate circumstance that I am caught up into and cant think straight!

Your first option will not work. You are not single, in the eyes of Canadian immigration, you are common-law. If you immigrate as single, you will never be able to sponsor your partner. On the application you must declare your partner. She can be accompanying or non-accompanying. It would make more sense to have her be an accompanying dependent. If she is non-accompanying, then you could sponsor her later as your common-law partner.

 

[DiNaV]

You must declare your partner. You are common-law, not single. If you do not declare them, you will NEVER be able to sponsor them, and you will also be at risk of losing your own PR by lying on the forms.

Thank you for the warning. I have not updated my application to show my status as "Common law partner" and also shown that my partner will accompany me to Canada. But doing this has dropped my score from 445 to 421 . Ofcouse, I have not got my partner's education evaluated yet, nor any IELTS score. But I wonder if having got both of these also will boost up my score upto 445 again or more. Please advice.

 

[happydayagain]

Common Law Proof

The key here is external validation and if there is nothing to substantiate that such as bills.. then I do like the idea of the letter from the landlord saying you and your common law partner have resided at the same address. To make it official you could have the landlord swear an oath before a friend of the court which could be any individual who has the right to do so. After having such a such an oath sworn dated and signed it would be difficult for the CIC to refute so I like the idea of the prior reply with an official oath sworn. It gives validity to the statement of the landlord beyond just writing a letter. In fact you could I guess in principle get other around you to do the same.

But let me restate the key as you know is the external proof beyond your own statement and if you cannot provide other information also swear an oath before a justice stating the reasons why you cannot provide other documentation.

Best wishes and in general agree with replies.

 

[Ponga]

Thank you for the warning. I have not updated my application to show my status as "Common law partner" and also shown that my partner will accompany me to Canada. But doing this has dropped my score from 445 to 421 . Ofcouse, I have not got my partner's education evaluated yet, nor any IELTS score. But I wonder if having got both of these also will boost up my score upto 445 again or more. Please advice.

Irregardless of the score, you MUST declare your partner!

 

[kryt0n]

If I say we were officially common law august 2012, say, do we provide proof of common law Aug 2011-Aug 2012, or since Aug 2012?

 

[wyho007]

If I say we were officially common law august 2012, say, do we provide proof of common law Aug 2011-Aug 2012, or since Aug 2012?

Both. Also, even after you send in the application, you should continue to accumulate proofs just in case you'll be asked to proof you and your partner is still in the relationship during the application process.

 

[Nayna]

Hello All,

I and my sister is are staying together.
1. We have individual bills with same address since past 3-5 years
2. We have individual letters from Bank stating we stay at same residential address
3. Our passport shows same residential proof
4. We have joint bank account since past 2 months
5. We have a notarised legal property document of my mom which says after her death the property will be equally divided with us
6. Our society will be able to provide us letter that we having been staying together for more than 5 years.

Are all the documents valid for the proof of common law partner?

 

[LaurieMTL]

Hello! I am very confused about something and I would really appreciate your help.
I am a permanent resident and I have been in a relationship with my partner for more than a year now. We lived together for 13 months in his country, and we decided to apply for his PR as common-law partner. BUT, since I am a permanent resident, I have to be in Canada to sponsor him (as stated on CIC's website, only citizens can apply outside of Canada). So I came back to Canada so we can submit our application. Now, my question is: are we still eligible, given the fact that we are no longer living together? A lawyer told me that the fact that I am back in Canada puts us back to square one as if we had never lived together. I don't understand how it is possible since as a permanent resident I CANNOT apply from outside and he cannot be here with me since he needs a visa. So the whole procedure would not make any sense if that's the case. Could someone help me clarify this?

Thank you!!

 

[sylvain1]

Hello! I am very confused about something and I would really appreciate your help.
I am a permanent resident and I have been in a relationship with my partner for more than a year now. We lived together for 13 months in his country, and we decided to apply for his PR as common-law partner. BUT, since I am a permanent resident, I have to be in Canada to sponsor him (as stated on CIC's website, only citizens can apply outside of Canada). So I came back to Canada so we can submit our application. Now, my question is: are we still eligible, given the fact that we are no longer living together? A lawyer told me that the fact that I am back in Canada puts us back to square one as if we had never lived together. I don't understand how it is possible since as a permanent resident I CANNOT apply from outside and he cannot be here with me since he needs a visa. So the whole procedure would not make any sense if that's the case. Could someone help me clarify this?

Thank you!!

That's why you should not spend money on lawyers....
The fact that you lived together continuously for at least a year (12 consecutive months) makes you in a common law relationship. You are eligible to apply even if you're not currently living together.

You definitely need to be in Canada to sponsor him as you are a PR and not a citizen yet. Your boyfriend could try to apply for a visa to come here as a visitor. If he gets the visa and comes as a visitor, you could apply for inland sponsorship along with an open work permit (OWP) for him. You can also apply using the Outland route, but he will not be eligible to the OWP and you will live apart during the process.

Whatever you choose to do, don't waste money on lawyers. You will find nice threads here for both inland and Outland sponsorship in which you can ask whatever is unclear to you.

 

[LaurieMTL]

That's why you should not spend money on lawyers....
The fact that you lived together continuously for at least a year (12 consecutive months) makes you in a common law relationship. You are eligible to apply even if you're not currently living together.

You definitely need to be in Canada to sponsor him as you are a PR and not a citizen yet. Your boyfriend could try to apply for a visa to come here as a visitor. If he gets the visa and comes as a visitor, you could apply for inland sponsorship along with an open work permit (OWP) for him. You can also apply using the Outland route, but he will not be eligible to the OWP and you will live apart during the process.

Whatever you choose to do, don't waste money on lawyers. You will find nice threads here for both inland and Outland sponsorship in which you can ask whatever is unclear to you.

Thanks a lot for your reply. This lawyer really scared me because I thought I did the right thing coming back here to apply! The tourist visa is not really an option because I've been told that when a foreigner applies for a tourist visa (especially when coming from a "3rd world country") and is in a relationship with someone in Canada, they decline it because they find automatically suspect that it is not just a tourist visa application but a "disguised" way of immigrating for good. And I'm also thinking.. if we apply for a tourist visa saying that he will return to his country after his stay, and then apply for his PR, they could accuse us of lying at the time we submitted the tourist visa..

 

[Canucks and Hawks]

Hello All,

I and my sister is are staying together.
1. We have individual bills with same address since past 3-5 years
2. We have individual letters from Bank stating we stay at same residential address
3. Our passport shows same residential proof
4. We have joint bank account since past 2 months
5. We have a notarised legal property document of my mom which says after her death the property will be equally divided with us
6. Our society will be able to provide us letter that we having been staying together for more than 5 years.

Are all the documents valid for the proof of common law partner?

Common law is for couples in love, not sibilings

 

[YVR123]

Hello All,

I and my sister is are staying together.
1. We have individual bills with same address since past 3-5 years
2. We have individual letters from Bank stating we stay at same residential address
3. Our passport shows same residential proof
4. We have joint bank account since past 2 months
5. We have a notarised legal property document of my mom which says after her death the property will be equally divided with us
6. Our society will be able to provide us letter that we having been staying together for more than 5 years.

Are all the documents valid for the proof of common law partner?

Are you and your sister (OMG) in a husband and wife like relationship. Common law is for couples in that kind of relationship and living together but do not want to/cannot get married.

You have misunderstood the definition of common-law. (i.e. common-law marriage)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common-law_marriage

 

[Glaciergal]

The only thing on that list you could really use as proof is your landlord. Have him write a up a letter saying that both of you have been living there since whatever date. The letters from any friends/family/colleagues will probably not be considered for proving common-law (although it could help prove your relationship), but you can include them anyways. However, you'll most likely need more proof than this.

I understand that. A lot of people start his process with similar issues because it's not like they started the relationship with the intention of applying for PR (oh the irony). It's unfortunate that the CIC is so strict on proving common-law (which is separate from proving that your relationship is genuine).

I have a similar problem. I need to prove common law to IRCC but I do not have any joint lease for the apartment where we lived in U.A.E. We were living with my partner's sister's family and the lease was in my brother-in-law's name. Can we get a letter from him stating that yes we did live with him and paid rent to him? Would that count as concrete proof to prove that my partner and I lived together at that address?