Questions about CommonLaw Outland Sponsorship

[mirmci]

Hello!

I am a Canadian and sponsoring my Australian boyfriend for residency in Canada. We have been together for 2.5 years and living together for almost two years. We will be applying outland to hopefully speed up the process. Just a couple questions to clear up some of our confusion while we fill everything out,

1. We have multiple ways to prove we are living together and it's a genuine continuing relationship however we have not done our income taxes together while we have been dating, though we could do them together for this year. Will this be a problem in our application?

2. Should he apply for an open work permit with his application with it going to Australia to be approved or should he apply for it separately?

3. We were travelling for five months in Hawaii, Australia and Indonesia from December 2015-May 2016 and were not paying rent at the time in BC but keeping our room due to the kindness of my boyfriends boss whose house we lived in, can we still include that as time living together? We do have a lease for it, proving the date we moved in and out. And we travelled together the whole time and spent time in his mom and dad's houses.

4. Do we have to fill out anything in the dependents section if he has no children or family planning to move with him?

Thanks!

 

[mirmci]

Sorry and one last question,

Is it worth getting a declaration of Common law certificate now even though we have been living as common law for two years? Will that effect the application?

Thanks!

 

[canadianwoman]

1. You should have declared yourself as common law on your income tax return once you had lived with him for one year. You are supposed to tell CRA when your marital status changes. For your taxes this year, you should certainly say you are common law.
3. The time spent traveling together can count as part of the time to establish common-law status. Show the proof you kept the lease on your room. Gather proof that you were in fact traveling together: matching entry and exit stamps and visas; matching plane tickets and boarding passes; both names on hotel receipts; letters from both parents stating you two stayed together at their houses; etc.
If you are worried that the visa officer might not consider that to be living together (he or she should, if you have enough proof), then you can always delay applying until May 2017.
4. The dependents section is for any dependent children he has. It does not include any other family anyway. If he has no children, it does not apply to you.
5. I advise getting a Statutory Declaration of Common-Law Union. It is not necessary, but some visa officers will ask for it later, so it saves time to send it in with the application.

 

[canuck_in_uk]

1. Will this be a problem in our application?

2. Should he apply for an open work permit with his application with it going to Australia to be approved or should he apply for it separately?

Hi

1. While not declaring the change in your marital status to CRA won't affect a PR app, it is actually tax fraud. If you hit the one year mark in 2016, then you need to declare that change and the date it occurred on when you file your 2016 taxes. If you hit one year in 2015, then you both need to amend your 2015 tax returns to declare this. You will most likely owe money, especially if you and/or your partner have claimed any tax credits/benefits since you became common-law.

2. There is no work permit option with an outland app.

 

[mirmci]

Thank you both so much for your help! I really appreciate it! We hit the one year mark in 2016 so we will make sure to declare it as such this year. Thanks again!