Unintentional gap in cohabitation

[CaroM8]

Good morning lovely people!

We've been working on our application for about a week now. Seems like we have all the documents and proof that we need, just need to put it together. I am worried that all this work won't matter due to one single fact... We have been living together (in Guatemala and Canada) since January 2015, so over a year, therefore common law.

The problem is that my partner had to leave Canada suddenly due to a death in his family. I couldn't leave so suddenly as I had a job and a lease to finish off. We have emails proving that we fully intended to stay together the whole time, but life happens you know. We can provide a death certificate of the family member who passed away. We were "apart" for about a month. Obviously stayed in contact constantly, which we will provide proof.

What do you guys think? Red flag? We will do everything we can to show that the gap was totally unintentional and all that...

 

[Mardek]

That little time apart shouldn't matter

 

[Aquakitty]

Didn't you already ask this?

 

[CaroM8]

I might've in passing.. But I was hoping someone could chime in that had this happen..

I'm kinda nervous about this. We are doing all this work putting together our application and I keep thinking, what if they don't even consider us common law to start with because of this gap? Ugh...

 

[scylla]

It depends when the one month break happened. If it happened after you had been living together for a year - you're fine. If it happened during the first year of living together to establish common law - that could create issue.

If it happened during the year to establish cohabitation, there is some risk CIC may see this month apart as a break in continuous cohabitation. Ultimately none of us can say for sure what CIC will do - it will be up to the individual officer who processes your application. Based on what we've seen on this forum, separations of under three week seem to be fine. Anything three weeks or more places you at risk of CIC classifying the separation as a break in cohabitation and having to start the one year calculation again from scratch.

 

[CaroM8]

It depends when the one month break happened. If it happened after you had been living together for a year - you're fine. If it happened during the first year of living together to establish common law - that could create issue.

If it happened during the year to establish cohabitation, there is some risk CIC may see this month apart as a break in continuous cohabitation. Ultimately none of us can say for sure what CIC will do - it will be up to the individual officer who processes your application. Based on what we've seen on this forum, separations of under three week seem to be fine. Anything three weeks or more places you at risk of CIC classifying the separation as a break in cohabitation and having to start the one year calculation again from scratch.

Shoot, I hope that's not the case!
I'm hoping that with our sub-lease, which indicates that we were supposed to be there at least one more month, and the death certificate (with partner flying out 2 days after to return to his family) it should be enough proof that we had every intention of being together all the time..

 

[canadianwoman]

Include the proof you have mentioned and an explanation. As scylla said, a shorter break would most likely be fine. A one-month break is questionable, but depending on the visa officer, might be OK. Just in case you are rejected and have to apply again, continue to gather proof of cohabitation and of the genuineness of the relationship.