Misrepresentation on spousal sponsorship

[LTL8605]

Hello Guys,

I'm hoping someone here can help me on my case right now. i got my PR on Dec 2014. i met my wife on 2013. we start dating on Sept 2014 and we get married on Dec 2016. Before we got married, we applied for a common law certificate on May 2015 but the problem is we accidentally put the date of start common law Sept 2013 until we get married. When we applied for my wife PR on 2016, CIC is now telling us that i should had included her on my application. This is really a honest mistake on our end. We really didn't misrepresent anything. It was just the wrong date on our common law certificate. We just sent our reply and additional documents like letter from the landlord saying that we were living on one house but separates room with 3 other people(5 people in one house with 5 separate rooms), revised common law certificate with correct date(Start on March 2015) notarized and statutory declaration that we misinterpret the common law term.

My questions are:

Do we have a chance of being approved?
What would be the effect on my PR?
If we get disapproved, what will we declare on my wife next application. can we declare we are common law on 2014 while in fact we are not but due to this is the reason of the disapproval are we force to declare that date(2014) as the start of common law?

Please help.

Thanks,

 

[Will_PA]

What was the "common law certificate" for? You applied for this in May 2015? Common law actually started in Sept 2015? So you lied to someone in May 2015 - who was this?

Is this correct?

 

[Rob_TO]

Hello Guys,

I'm hoping someone here can help me on my case right now. i got my PR on Dec 2014. i met my wife on 2013. we start dating on Sept 2014 and we get married on Dec 2016. Before we got married, we applied for a common law certificate on May 2015 but the problem is we accidentally put the date of start common law Sept 2013 until we get married. When we applied for my wife PR on 2016, CIC is now telling us that i should had included her on my application. This is really a honest mistake on our end. We really didn't misrepresent anything. It was just the wrong date on our common law certificate. We just sent our reply and additional documents like letter from the landlord saying that we were living on one house but separates room with 3 other people(5 people in one house with 5 separate rooms), revised common law certificate with correct date(Start on March 2015) notarized and statutory declaration that we misinterpret the common law term.

My questions are:

Do we have a chance of being approved?
What would be the effect on my PR?
If we get disapproved, what will we declare on my wife next application. can we declare we are common law on 2014 while in fact we are not but due to this is the reason of the disapproval are we force to declare that date(2014) as the start of common law?

Please help.

Thanks,
JP

Why did you apply for "common-law certificate" (not sure what this is, perhaps you mean statutory declaration of common-law) on May 2015, if you only started dating in Sept 2014??

You could not legally be common-law anytime before Sept 2015, and that's assuming you were immediately living together in the same home/room at the same time you started dating.

If you showed that you were living in the same shared home (but different rooms) since Sept 2013, then you may have some difficulties here as IRCC could simply see the same address going back to 2013 and declare you were common-law as of Sept 2014. They have done this to others.

You've already submitted proofs that you were just house-mates at that time and not even dating, and the error you made on date, so hopefully they accept your proof. As long as you convince the IRCC visa officer of this, they should approve the app. However if they don't accept your proofs and think you're lying to them, they may reject the app. If app is rejected an appeal may be needed since if you just submitted a new app the next visa officer will see the same notes from this visa officer so may lead to same result.

 

[Miraclejj]

Hello Guys,

I'm hoping someone here can help me on my case right now. i got my PR on Dec 2014. i met my wife on 2013. we start dating on Sept 2014 and we get married on Dec 2016. Before we got married, we applied for a common law certificate on May 2015 but the problem is we accidentally put the date of start common law Sept 2013 until we get married. When we applied for my wife PR on 2016, CIC is now telling us that i should had included her on my application. This is really a honest mistake on our end. We really didn't misrepresent anything. It was just the wrong date on our common law certificate. We just sent our reply and additional documents like letter from the landlord saying that we were living on one house but separates room with 3 other people(5 people in one house with 5 separate rooms), revised common law certificate with correct date(Start on March 2015) notarized and statutory declaration that we misinterpret the common law term.

My questions are:

Do we have a chance of being approved?
What would be the effect on my PR?
If we get disapproved, what will we declare on my wife next application. can we declare we are common law on 2014 while in fact we are not but due to this is the reason of the disapproval are we force to declare that date(2014) as the start of common law?

Please help.

Thanks,
JP

I think you should seriously to consult a good immigration lawyer asap, instead asking questions here. The misrepresentation is a serious offense in Immigration Law. A simple letter from landloard may help, but it is not necessary enough to overturn the decision. Usually CIC will not accept an excuse of making an honest mistake, because on the application it clearly stated that as an applicant, you are 100% responsible for all the information you filled in. You may stand a chance to overturn it, if you have concrete evidences, such as your tax return to show that you filed tax as common law, after your landing. You need concrete evidences to connect all the dots together. Otherwise, you are expecting a certain refusal from CIC, which means they will probably bar your wife 5 years for misrepresentation, and you will also risk to have your PR revoked, should CIC launch an investigation against you.

If you get disapproved, and the disapproval is not on the ground of misrepresentation, your next application should be spousal application, not common law, since you were married.

And "can we declare we are common law on 2014 while in fact we are not but due to this is the reason of the disapproval are we force to declare that date(2014) as the start of common law?" This is exact the reason that CIC is suspecting you made the misrepresentation. Never Lie on your application.

 

[scylla]

Sounds like they were living together in the same house (but separate rooms) starting September 2013 - but didn't start actually dating until September 2014.

The fact they were living at the same address for a year before he became a PR certainly complicates things.

 

[Rob_TO]

If you get disapproved, and the disapproval is not on the ground of misrepresentation, your next application should be spousal application, not common law, since you were married.
.

App could be rejected not due to misrepresentation, but because the visa officer thinks they were common-law before he landed as a PR and not declared hence forever excluding his wife from being sponsored. In this case a new app would probably also end in rejection, for the same reason, despite the fact they are married.
For this reason, they may need to consider an appeal if app is rejected.

 

[Will_PA]

App could be rejected not due to misrepresentation, but because the visa officer thinks they were common-law before he landed as a PR and not declared hence forever excluding his wife from being sponsored. In this case a new app would probably also end in rejection, for the same reason, despite the fact they are married.
For this reason, they may need to consider an appeal if app is rejected.

Or renounce and start again

 

[Miraclejj]

App could be rejected not due to misrepresentation, but because the visa officer thinks they were common-law before he landed as a PR and not declared hence forever excluding his wife from being sponsored. In this case a new app would probably also end in rejection, for the same reason, despite the fact they are married.
For this reason, they may need to consider an appeal if app is rejected.

I know that Rob. All I am saying is that if somehow the CIC accepted his explanation and allowed the case to be continue processing, and later is disapproved on any other grounds, then he can either appeal or re-apply. And if he decides to re-apply, since they got married in 2016, the new application should be filed as spousal, not common law.

 

[LTL8605]

Thanks guy for the fast reply. We applied for spousal not common law. It just complicates when they noticed that the common law certificate was dated 2013 to 2016. We went back to the lawyer who signed the common law certificate and he reissue a new one with updated date(2015-2016). New certificate was forwarded to CIC.

 

[LTL8605]

CIC gave us 30 days to forward documents and explanation. We just sent everything so hopefully we will get a favorable result. if not, i would have big problem most if they will revoke my PR. I'm been in canada 8 yrs. I just bought my house, car and lots of thing. if they send me home, who will pay for these things?

 

[LTL8605]

Statutory Declaration of common not common law certificate.. sorry

 

[LTL8605]

What was the "common law certificate" for? You applied for this in May 2015? Common law actually started in Sept 2015? So you lied to someone in May 2015 - who was this?

Is this correct?

We didn't apply as common law. We applied as spouse in PR application. When we get our statutory certificate on May 2015, we put the starting date as 2013 instead of 2015. 2015 when we open our joint bank account. That should be the time our common law started.

 

[Rob_TO]

We didn't apply as common law. We applied as spouse in PR application. When we get our statutory certificate on May 2015, we put the starting date as 2013 instead of 2015. 2015 when we open our joint bank account. That should be the time our common law started.

Absolutely wrong. The date common-law begins, is as of the date you lived together 12 months while a conjugal couple. So if you started dating SEpt 2014, there is no way you were common-law any time before Sept 2015. Date of opening a bank account is irrelevant.

So if you submitted a new stat declaration of common-law showing a date before Sept 2015, you have submitted a wrong form again which may lead to even more confusion.

 

[LTL8605]

Absolutely wrong. The date common-law begins, is as of the date you lived together 12 months while a conjugal couple. So if you started dating SEpt 2014, there is no way you were common-law any time before Sept 2015. Date of opening a bank account is irrelevant.

So if you submitted a new stat declaration of common-law showing a date before Sept 2015, you have submitted a wrong form again which may lead to even more confusion.

The lawyer should have refused our declaration and told us about this. Wow! why did he not explained this to us :-( The new declaration was dated May 2015 to Dec 2016 ( we get married Dec 2016).

 

[LTL8605]

Absolutely wrong. The date common-law begins, is as of the date you lived together 12 months while a conjugal couple. So if you started dating SEpt 2014, there is no way you were common-law any time before Sept 2015. Date of opening a bank account is irrelevant.

So if you submitted a new stat declaration of common-law showing a date before Sept 2015, you have submitted a wrong form again which may lead to even more confusion.

The purpose that we get the declaration is to be legally together but then 2016 we decided to get married. When we applied for common law declaration i was expecting that it should start when we get our bank joint account. I think i miss understand the meaning of Common law