This has probably been asked a thousand times but here goes!

We went to Canada to get our PR cards 3 years ago and have only been in Canada for 3 weeks (when we initailly went and got our PR cards). Since then we have not been able to sell our house to move to Canada and are still living in the UK. Our PR cards run out in 2013 so we have not fullfilled the 730 out of 5 years rule.
My Questions are :-
1. If we travel to Canada next summer to BC on Holiday with our British Passports can we get our SIN cards with our still valid PR cards? will we be asked about our status when applying for our SIN cards?
2. If then we travel back the following year to stay with still valid PR cards and SIN cards ( and enter with British Passports) will we be able to work and stay in Canada and replace our PR card after we have been in Canada for 2 years?
3. How will this effect our documents that we got for bringing our possessions across to Canada when we got them 3 years ago?

Still want to go but the current state of the UK economy means we are getting silly offers on the house, which would make our finacial situation bad in Canada with the current exchange rate.

Firstly thanks for reading my long post and if you can reply, thanks.
Chris.

Welcome to the forum Chris. You obviously know about the 2 years out of a rolling 5 to maintain PR status. There's no wiggle room, so you simply need to add 5 years from the date of landing (activation of PR status), add up the time you have been here so far (~3 weeks), the time you can spend on holidays in 2012 (another 3 weeks?) then work backwards from the expiration date of your present PR cards to see when the absolute deadline falls for you to be back here permanently.

If you miss this deadline, or as sounds possible, have already missed it, your PR cards cannot be renewed and you would not be allowed to work here any more (unless you applied again from scratch for a new work permit/visa of some sort or other).

HTH

Once before at least

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=739516

I think you are most likely going to be outa time very soon unless you move over in the next month and stay for two years.

Expiry of the PR card has no bearing on validity of PR. Even if you card has not expired, if you have not spent 2 years out of the 5 since activating your PR, your PR status is lost. If you get in and it does not get noticed right away, if it ever gets picked up, perhaps when applying for citizenship or someone dobs you in, you would likely be asked to leave Canada. A big risk once you have set up a life in Canada.

By my calculation, if you activated PR on November 1, 2008, your 5 years is up October 31, 2013. You have spent 3 weeks in Canada, you would have to be back in Canada by tomorrow night and not leave (even for one night), until October 31, 2013 to retain PR.

To get SIN cards, you also have to have an address in Canada for them to be sent to.

I really empathise with your situation.

I could not sell my house and decided to rent it out, moving here on a PR card, November 2008. At that time, I thought the housing markiet would pick up in a couple of years and I could sell it, paying off the mortgage I raised in order to buy a house here.

Now with only 2 years before the mortgage is due for payment, I am starting to sweat (figuratively of course!). I have asked the lender to extend the mortgage term and awaiting their decision.

I do not want to risk losing good tenants by putting the house up for sale, then having to pay the mortgage myself indefinitely, only to find that it doesn't sell and I have to try and rent it out again.

I have checked out the market, and there is a lot of property for sale in the area, some of it 'no chain', although prices have held up after the intial fall in prices.

In retrospect, keeping my house may have been to my advantage as I am now considering returning in a couple of years.

I guess if you are not prepared to rent out your house, then you are not going to make it to Canada. Perhaps you could look at it from this point of view, you were not meant to come to Canada and maybe in retrospect, you will look back and reflect that it was the right thing, even though it is not what you want right now.

Good luck

PR status is not lost automatically. http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/resourc.../enf23-eng.pdf

Not that there is much hope though.

Technically you have to give it up or have it taken away, however 'When an officer believes a permanent resident has failed to comply with their A28 residency obligation, then that officer should report the permanent resident under the provisions of A44(1) and recommend the issuing of a departure order.'

Perhaps go here first http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/resourc...p/op10-eng.pdf

How badly do you want to live in Canada?


If you want it enough then I suspect the reality is that yes, you can get the SIN card based on the current PR situation, and you can sit tight until you do once again meet the required days to renew the PR card, but you would technically not be meeting the PR requirements at some point, and that of course carries some risk.

I guess you need to decide whether you want to move to Canada enough to take the financial loss and other chances. Good luck...

Answer to Question 1:

If you get past the officer at Port of Entry without getting asked any questions then, yes! The thing that might trigger some questions is your lack of a Canadian Home address on your Declaration Card. If you get through, you will then be able to apply for a SIN card.

Answer to Question 2:

I say again, only if you get past the officer at the Port of Entry.

I would say that with your PR card expiring soon, that there is an even greater chance that you may be asked those hard questions, but if you get through then you would be able to Work.

As to replacing your PR card after being in Canada for 2 years. When you apply for your PR Card you have to provide details for all your addresses in the last 5 years (with from and to dates). Unless you lie, it will be clear from the dates that you provide that you have lost your PR status. The only way that you will not be required to provide details of your UK address is if you stay in Canada 5 years before applying for your PR Card. This would mean no cross border shopping, No visits to the UK for family weddings or sick relatives, No foreign vacations, just stuck in Canada.

Answer to Question 3

There is no time limit to bringing your possessions across.

One of the problems of losing the PR card is when and if it is asked for by govt. depts. Also, to apply for medical in a province the PR card would have to be produced. If the OP gets in under the wire, there would be no way to prove status once the card expires without re applying, 5 years is a long wait in limbo, not knowing if you are going to be able to stay or be sent back.

Legally thats a grey area. The only legal requirement to produce a PR card Im aware if is for travel with a commercial carrier, and even that is sometimes a moot point (UK passport waiver etc), what really counts for status is the record of landing form. Lets not forget, most newcommers getting a SIN or signing up for health care havent yet received the PR card anyway, it takes a couple of months to arrive at least from what Ive read.

You arent wrong that it will potentially create issues for OHIP and other government business, but on the other hand you only need to get a new OHIP card every 5 years anyway, so by then PR should be well established.

Its not without risk for sure, but personally I think the risk small. Really though its up to the OP to decide if they are going to commit now, or let it lapse and move on with their life.

Isn't it a bit late to be asking this?
Last year or even 6 months ago, maybe there could have been a solution, but now there isn't really anywhere (legitimately)for you to go on this.

You know the answer really anyway - you haven't fulfilled the residency requirements and so unless you are prepared to try to get round the rules (which carries a risk as iaink and Aviator have said, although they differ in their opinion of the seriousness of the risk) you have blown this PR and will have to re-apply.

I am sorry that your house hasn't sold but we were in the same situation and so my husband came to Canada alone to work and I stayed in the UK.
We sacrificed being together for over a year to get the life in Canada we wanted and didn't let the UK housing market hold us back. There was also the rental option which we had waiting as a back-up plan.

I would have advised you do the same if necessary, but I suppose that isn't an option now at this late stage unfortunately.

Good Luck with whatever you decide to do.

The market was in a dip when my OH left the UK, we chose to leave the house empty and let the estate agent sell it. It sold after a year, we took a bit of a hit, seemed a lot then, but now nearly 20 years on it seems pretty insignificant.

Kind of same here - we waited until we couldn't stand being apart any more and then we left the house empty and kept it on the market.
We have also taken a bit of a hit over what we might have got if the house had still been inhabited.
Buyers seem to think if you are not there then you must be desperate to sell and maybe they are right to some extent.
It has taken some time for us to find a buyer (our sale is due to complete next week :f ingerscrossed.

I know the house price we will realise is less than what we might have managed under different circumstances but as you say, even now it seems worth it to have got our life here properly started.

As some posters on here often say, it is only money and you can make more money but you can't get time back and what if you are FSW Cat 1 and your job is removed from the list by the time you reapply?

I have met at least two people who have applied for PR and let it lapse as the OP seems to have done and I just couldn't understand why in their case as I cannot in this one because it wasn't as if they changed their minds about going - they just let circumstances dictate to them. (The other two I met were at the IELTS exam and were reapplying; one of them had let PR lapse TWICE already!)

I agree with helcat12. Whilst I sympathise with you about your house, there will be many people reading your post who would love to have the opportunity to have PR and be here in Canada and who will make huge sacrifices to do so.

We had to drop the price of our house enormously to get a sale and that was the only way we would be able to get here. OH had a job offer that was the opportunity of a lifetime. As a result we came here with not as much money in the bank as we would have liked. We knew that it was now or never and we have not regretted the decision for one second.

I cannot believe your house has been on the market for 3 years!
Could you not sell and cut your losses and rent when you get here?

You are the only one who can make dreams happen and IMHO anyone who is prepared to wait so long for an economic upturn in the UK before emigrating needs to question their reasons for wanting to come here in the first place.

Sorry and hope it works out in the end.