Common Law Sponsorship

[Matthew85]

Hi my name is Matthew, I'm from Ireland. My girlfriend is Canadian. We started dating in 2011 in Toronto while I was there on a working holiday visa. While in Toronto we started living together in november 2012. When my visa ran out, my girlfriend and I moved to Ireland and she started a 2 year working holiday visa. Her visa runs out next summer and we are looking into her sponsoring me so we can stay together and both move back to Canada. We have now been living together for almost 23 months so we know we qualify as a common law couple. I wanted to know is there any benefit to applying after we have been living together for the full 2 years?

I have already read through a lot of pages on this forum and they have been very helpful but not all cases are exactly the same, so I wanted to ask some of the same questions but relative to our case.


- Do we need to fill out the IMM3999 along with the IMM3900? and what other forms am I missing?

- Do we apply to the London offices?

- My girlfriend wants to visit Canada for the Christmas and unfortunately I can not go with her. What is the longest period of time we can be apart from each other so as not to void our common law status?

- We have hundreds of photos of us together over the last 3 years. At family events and traveling together. We also had joint leases but no joint bank account, she would normally lodge her money to my account to pay the rent. What are the most vital pieces of evidence to prove our relationship?

Thanks in advance,
Matthew

 

[Rob_TO]

I wanted to know is there any benefit to applying after we have been living together for the full 2 years?

No there is no benefit. You could have applied as soon as you reached your 12 months of cohabitation.

- Do we need to fill out the IMM3999 along with the IMM3900? and what other forms am I missing?

Complete OUTLAND application with all forms is here: http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/information/applications/fc.asp

3999 and 3900 are guides. There is nothing to fill out in those forms.

- Do we apply to the London offices?

You would put London as the processing office. But you mail the whole package to CPC-Mississauga.

- My girlfriend wants to visit Canada for the Christmas and unfortunately I can not go with her. What is the longest period of time we can be apart from each other so as not to void our common law status?

You have already established common-law. So you can't really break that anymore. She could go to Canada while you wait in Ireland during the entire application processing if you wanted. If the Christmas travel is for a few weeks or even months, it won't matter.

- We have hundreds of photos of us together over the last 3 years. At family events and traveling together. We also had joint leases but no joint bank account, she would normally lodge her money to my account to pay the rent. What are the most vital pieces of evidence to prove our relationship?

You need to prove 2 things - the relationship, and that you've cohabited for at least 12 continuous months.

For cohabitation, the most important thing is the joint lease. You should also show
- mail addressed to both of you, going to the same address
- letters from friends/family that confirms your cohabitation and relationship (I think 2 need to be notarized for London office)
- any joint bank acct or credit card. If you don't have one now, then make one before submitting the app
- if you have life insurance on each other

Also, did your girlfriend continue to be a resident of Canada for tax purposes while in Ireland, so continued to file taxes to CRA each year? If so, I hope she changed her status from single to common-law with the CRA when you reached 12 months of living together.

 

[Leon]

No there is no benefit. You could have applied as soon as you reached your 12 months of cohabitation.

There is one benefit applying after 2 years together and that is that he would not get condition 51 on his PR. Condition 51 is having to cohabit with the sponsor for at least 2 years after getting PR.

 

[Rob_TO]

There is one benefit applying after 2 years together and that is that he would not get condition 51 on his PR. Condition 51 is having to cohabit with the sponsor for at least 2 years after getting PR.

As I interpret the rules for Condition 51, it states that you need to have cohabited in a common-law relationship for 2 years. Since the 1st year of living together is just qualifying for common-law, you would need to live together 3 years (1 qualifying and 2 as officially common-law) to avoid Condition 51.

Also I wouldn't call not getting Condition 51 as a real "advantage", as it would only be if they weren't planning to actually live with each other after getting PR. So would only be an advantage in very unique or specific situations.

 

[Matthew85]

Also, did your girlfriend continue to be a resident of Canada for tax purposes while in Ireland, so continued to file taxes to CRA each year? If so, I hope she changed her status from single to common-law with the CRA when you reached 12 months of living together.

Hi I was actually trying to look into this. In April my girlfriend Chantale did ask her mother to bring her T4 for 2013 to the accountant that she had dealt with the previous year. The accountant did her taxes for 2013 and did not change her status from single to common law. We have been emailing the accountant and she said we should try to contact the CRA ourselves to change her status. Would this be the best thing for us to do? How badly will this affect our common law claim?

 

[Rob_TO]

Hi I was actually trying to look into this. In April my girlfriend Chantale did ask her mother to bring her T4 for 2013 to the accountant that she had dealt with the previous year. The accountant did her taxes for 2013 and did not change her status from single to common law. We have been emailing the accountant and she said we should try to contact the CRA ourselves to change her status. Would this be the best thing for us to do? How badly will this affect our common law claim?

From your initial post, I think you started living together in Nov 2012, so reached 1 year continuous cohabitation/common-law status in Nov 2013, correct?

You have 2 big issues here:

1. with CIC. She will need to submit her 2013 Option C printout/Notice of Assessment in your PR application, and as it stands now it will show SINGLE for her 2013 tax status. But in your PR app you are claiming you were common-law then. Obviously these don't match, so it can raise suspicions as to genuineness of common-law relationship.

2. with CRA. By filing taxes as "single" when she was in fact "common-law", your partner has actually (accidentally) committed tax fraud. CRA states one MUST file taxes as common-law, in the year you become common-law. So she needs to change marital status with CRA to common-law back-dated to Nov 2013, AND she needs to do a re-assessment on her 2013 tax return and basically re-file it including you as her common-law partner. Her accountant should be able to do this for her.

Note if she was getting any tax credits as a single person since Nov 2013, she may or may not need to pay all those back if CRA determines she wasn't entitled to them as a common-law partner. CRA will ask for your total income earned anywhere in the world in 2013 to assess her total family income for tax purposes.

 

[Matthew85]

Okay thanks for getting back to me. We'll get on to that right away. Do you know if there would be any other repercussions apart from repayment of tax credits?

 

[Rob_TO]

Do you know if there would be any other repercussions apart from repayment of tax credits?

No, and in fact depending on how your income was in 2013, she may actually end up with more money back then she had when filing as single since she would get to claim the spousal tax credit now. But it's impossible to determine this without knowing all the income details.

Her accountant should be able to file the re-assessment. But if you told the accountant last year she was common-law, and the accountant still filed as single, then I would seriously question the accountant's abilities.