Doubt about Common-Law application

[Camis]

Hi all,

I'm a Canadian citizen and I want to sponsor my common-law partner. We've been living together in Canada, since August 2014. She has an EU passport, and got a visitor's visa extension which allowed her to stay in Canada and achieve common-law status since August.

In December of last year, she decided to return to our home country (Brazil) for the holidays since her extension would expire in January anyway. We also decided she would stay in our home country while waiting for our OUTLAND sponsorship application to process. I went along for the holidays and we continued living together at her parents house during this time. However, I now need to return to Canada to go back to work, and my question is: are we are going to loose common-law status if we now live apart for the next 6 months while the application is processing?

Should I make any sort of explanation to CIC in regards to this?

In form 5406 "Additional Family Information", it asks for present address for each, the Applicant and the Common-Law partner. Will it negate our status if we each have different "present addresses" ??

Hopefully someone can shine a light on this for us. Thanks!

 

[Rob_TO]

Once you reach the initial 12 months of cohabitation to become common-law, you can then live apart if you want. Read here: http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/resources/manuals/op/op02-eng.pdf
5.36. How can someone in Canada sponsor a common-law partner from outside Canada when
the definition says “is cohabiting”?
According to case law, the definition of common-law partner should be read as “an individual who
is (ordinarily) cohabiting”. After the one year period of cohabitation has been established, the
partners may live apart for periods of time without legally breaking the cohabitation. For example,
a couple may have been separated due to armed conflict, illness of a family member, or for
employment or education-related reasons, and therefore do not cohabit at present (see also 5.44
for information on persecution and penal control). Despite the break in cohabitation, a commonlaw
relationship exists if the couple has cohabited continuously in a conjugal relationship in the
past for at least one year and intend to do so again as soon as possible. There should be
evidence demonstrating that both parties are continuing the relationship, such as visits,
correspondence, and telephone calls

 

[Camis]

Thanks for the info.

Do you think I need to offer anything in terms of explanation of why we're living apart now?

 

[truesmile]

No.