What does CIC want to see in proof of means of financial support?

[mathieut]

Hello,

Up until now, my understanding was that CIC only required sufficient balance at the time of submission of the application, and when they give you PR. Why "up until now"? Because I just received my ITA, excitedly completed the rest of my application... and reached the document checklist...

I searched this board and found a ton of super useful information already. I understand CIC wants to check that I did not just borrowed money to have a good looking bank account, and that my account has a history of having money on it. The reality, though, is it doesn't. I work as a consultant for a startup, and this is what my balance over the past 6 months looks like:

A variable paycheck at some point of the month depending on what the boss can pay us, a sharp drop corresponding to my putting money on credit cards, and then a slow decrease of what's left (if anything) to zero. Rinse and repeat.

Now the reason I even submitted my application is that we finally got money, I'm going to get several months worth of back pay within the next couple of weeks, and will get paid in a timely manner. But that means the next peak on the chart will be at ~$35k and suspiciously look like a loan to go through immigration... So I could wait until a month after that to show regularity starting to set, but further than that and I lose that big november peak on the chart...

Any thoughts on what is the best way for me to approach this? Would uploading an optional "client information" explaining my situation help?

 

[vancouveremily]

Hey mathieut, this is from a while back but I'm sort of experiencing the same problem so was just wondering what your solution was to the application. I am thinking of submitting a letter of explanation along side the statements/documents.

 

[psy347]

Yes provide a Letter of Explanation. Keep the language direct and simple. I personally would like to see a graph on letters, because it is cool and informative. But I am not sure it is required with the LoE.

 

[mathieut]

I ended up waiting until the very last minute to send my final application, so at least I had 3 months of history with enough funds. I also ran into the added twist that my bank refused to provide me a letter with more than 60 days of history, so I requested they gave me full stamped statements. Which might end up being a positive thing since they show that I was getting paid and sustaining myself over the whole 6 months period.

I explained the whole thing in an LoE. I did not add the fancy graphs because I couldn't get my bank to stamp them as authentic (it's a small credit union, and I don't live anywhere near it any longer).

I submitted my application on July 23rd, received an update 3 weeks later (saying that they'd looked at my medical exam and it was ok), and am still waiting to hear more.