Working on application- and i have a few questions...

[girlfromthenorthcountry]

Hello,
I'm just beginning to work on the application and thinking about how to organize everything and I just have a few questions ...
So I am going to have 3 sections- Sponsor's documents, Applicant's documents and Supporting documents.

So I will make Appendix's to go at the back to fill in where there is not enough space... so for sponsor's documents I should put "See Appendix A in Sponsor's Documents Section" then write out my answer for the question and at the bottom of my answer put "Please see Appendix A in Supporting Documents section for evidence" ?? does that sound well organized? and that way just have my answers in the sponsors documents and have all the photos and letters only in the supporting documents section...

2. If I am sponsoring my husband INLAND do we have to fill out the SPONSORED SPOUSE/PARTNER QUESTIONAIRE form? because it says "to be completed by persons living outside of Canada and being sponsored as spouses...." but we will be IN Canada.... and if we don't have to fill that out then we just don't give proof of how we met and all of that? WHy not?? should we just fill it out anyway? or do they ask us about that at the interview and thats the reason... sorry, just confused!!


3. At what point does my husband have to do the police check? He should get it while he is in his home country before coming to Canada or does it have to be within a certain time frame of applying?


Thank you!! any help will be appreciated!

 

[campesinaj]

Hi

there is lots of info on the forum which helped me organize our application, so definitely search around and see what others did. Just keep it as clear as possible and use common sense. there's no one "correct" way to do it.

I don't know much about this topic, but many people here talk about inland vs. outland sponsorship and it seems that outland is much faster - even if your spouse is in Canada on a visitor's visa.

perhaps you should search more info on this here on the forum as well or someone else can comment further.

 

[abedelia]

Here is how we organized ours.

First, we had a cover letter. The cover letter contained a brief mention of our contact info and what is in the application. We listed all of the forms/fee receipt, etc. and then the last item was "Supporting Documents (with separate table of contents)". The next page were the Document Checklists (the main one and the country-specific one) showing again which forms and documents were in the application.

Then, the forms. If there was a question that required a long answer (describe how your relationship progressed, that kind of thing) then we wrote "see attached". Then we attached pages to that form with a paperclip. On the attached pages, we would write a heading, like "answer to form IMM-XXX, question 5" and then the answer. In our answers, we would sometimes say things like "for Christmas 2008 we travelled together to visit my family in Seattle (see Supporting Documents--photos)". That was a reference to the supporting documents section which was in a separate folder.

In the supporting documents section, we had another table of contents. It was presented in outline form. The main sections were: Sponsor and Sponsored Person. Then, within the sponsored person section, there were 6 main sections:

1. Identity and civil status documents,
2. Travel documents and passports,
3. Proof of relationship to sponsor (this was the largest section and it had sub-sections that represented documents that were referred to in the attachments to the forms, ie. photos, receipts, letters, etc.). All of the sub-sections in here we just did the best we could to label carefully and organize as well as we could...,
4. Police certificate,
5. Proof of medical exam,
6. Photos (per specifications)

I based this order on both the main document checklist and the country-specific checklist that I used (the US one, so others might be different).

This method of organization made ours look very organized, but I can imagine that if you had different documents or some sections were larger than mine for some reason, it would make sense to do it differently.

 

[girlfromthenorthcountry]

ok wow haha that sounds so confusing to read!!! i wish they had templates or some samples online or something!!! it's overwhelming! but im sure i will figure it out as we go...

 

[angelbrat]

My partner sponsored me in the Family Class Inland.

I admit, our paperwork was very very simple, we filled in the forms that we were told to on the check list form, we sent my police record and medical receipt. We also sent fingerprints off to the RMCP in Ottawa before hand even though that wasn't requested with the application but it did save time over all so worth doing.

When I needed to add extra to any question, I just typed onto a plain sheet my name, DOB and the question number and form number, then the answer.

To be honest after sending my application in I started to read this forum and got really nervous because it appeared that I hadn't sent enough in. As a matter of fact, it took less than 8 months to finalize, I 'land' on May 20th, application was sent in September 29th 2009.

Just be honest, precise and easily read. Think of how many applications Immigration have to read, I am sure they appreciate just having the correct forms written plainly and simply stating the answers to their questions.

 

[lands]

I agree with angelbrat, that is the exact process I followed...mine however was outland..but the bottom line is..it is not about the quantity of the information..it is all about the content, accuracy and presentation of the information....keep it simple ,to the point, and easy to find....

 

[abedelia]

ok wow haha that sounds so confusing to read!!! i wish they had templates or some samples online or something!!! it's overwhelming! but im sure i will figure it out as we go...

I know, it sounds confusing, but once you get all of your documents together and sit down with the document checklists, it's really not that complicated. The main point I was trying to make is that many of the materials I submitted as proof of the relationship were referenced by the "narratives" that we told about our relationship, which, in turn, were elaborated as answers to questions in the forms. That is one way to do it.

Good luck!

 

[Lois Lane]

you want to make it as simple as possible, should copy pictures and other proof and place under each section that its relevant for, it will be quick reference for the IO instaed of having them flip to this page and that page

best of luck