Getting married WHILE waiting for PPR

[dishy_max]

Hey guys - hopefully somebody can help me out here (I'm sure I'll be inundated with uber helpful advice even if it's not what I want to hear). We're all set to file under family class, common-law but got engaged a week ago....

My fellah was hoping we could tie the knot in August. I'm a bit worried that if we don't have the PPR by then, it's pretty dodgy. I'd rather have a long engagement and get the residency in place than to go ahead and get married and screw something up!

Anyone had this experience before or know or anybody that has....any ideas?

Cheers, D.

 

[waitingintz]

I don't know whether it would cause a delay or not but you can always have the wedding and just not do the paper work until later... then technically you're still not married but you get to have your wedding and reception etc when convenient for you without worrying.

 

[kelKel]

We're in the same situation. We got engaged just after we submitted the application. I think we'll be waiting though. You would have to inform them of the marriage and submit your wedding certificate I imagine that could delay things a bit.

 

[kelKel]

Oh btw Congrats on the engagement!

 

[RobsLuv]

It won't screw anything up. When you apply common-law, you have to prove that you are eligible to apply by demonstrating that you qualify as a common-law partner because you have continuously co-habitated for at least a year. When you get married, that requirement is gone - your legal marriage makes you eligible to apply. So, when you marry, you make your qualification easier.

No matter where you are in the process (unless you've already been approved and "landed"), just notify the processing office - send them a copy of your marriage licence with your immigration file number - and, if you haven't been approved yet, they'll simply change your classification to spouse (as opposed to common-law partner) and continue processing. IF there happens to be any issues with your qualification as a common-law partner, the marriage will resolve them. Otherwise, it's a non-issue either way and things just go on normally. Spouse/common-law processing is identical except for the one issue: a common-law applicant needs to prove that they are, indeed, an eligible applicant by demonstrating that they meet the definition of a c/l partner. A spouse is eligible to apply by virtue of the legal marriage, nothing else is necessary.

 

[kelKel]

Thx for the clarification!

 

[dishy_max]

It won't screw anything up. When you apply common-law, you have to prove that you are eligible to apply by demonstrating that you qualify as a common-law partner because you have continuously co-habitated for at least a year. When you get married, that requirement is gone - your legal marriage makes you eligible to apply. So, when you marry, you make your qualification easier.

No matter where you are in the process (unless you've already been approved and "landed"), just notify the processing office - send them a copy of your marriage licence with your immigration file number - and, if you haven't been approved yet, they'll simply change your classification to spouse (as opposed to common-law partner) and continue processing. IF there happens to be any issues with your qualification as a common-law partner, the marriage will resolve them. Otherwise, it's a non-issue either way and things just go on normally. Spouse/common-law processing is identical except for the one issue: a common-law applicant needs to prove that they are, indeed, an eligible applicant by demonstrating that they meet the definition of a c/l partner. A spouse is eligible to apply by virtue of the legal marriage, nothing else is necessary.

Thanks for the answer....very confusing.

I wasn't sure if they would have just rejected the common-law application and told us to apply as a married couple which would have put us at the bottom of the pile and we'd have to start all over again?

If it's simply a matter of us sending the marriage certificate over and the IO changing it from common-law to married....that's do-able.

I just don't want to wait until we're married to file seeing as we had put in 4 months of work on our application and only just got engaged on Christmas day!