Proof of living together
 

Hi everyone,

Me and my partner are currently filling out the sponsorship paperwork.

We have everything they are asking for, except his name is not on any of our household bills, or rental agreement. Everything has always been in my name. What we do have is his driving lisence, he is named on our car insurance, doctors and dentist and a joint bank account all in our address. Is this likely to be a massive issue?

We have proof of a genuine relationship as in text messaging, social media interactions, photographs and 3 children together.

Im so worried that the application will be rejected as his name is not on any household bills.

Any advise would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

Re: Proof of living together
 

From your earlier posts, I assume this is 'spousal sponsorship'?

If so, there is a lot on this in the wiki section if you haven't spotted it already. Try here:

https://britishexpats.com/wiki/Spous....27s_spouse.3F

How long have you lived together? I suspect the fact that you have 3 children together (and you are both named as parents on the birth certs??) is pretty good proof of a 'marriage like relationship!!!

Joint bank account is good as is named on car insurance. The joint account would indicate that you are both paying the bills regardless of who's name things are in. Do you have proof of WHEN you started to live together that proves at least 12 months?

If your joint account has you both at the same address, do you have a statement showing this from at least a year ago? Do you have old car insurance policies showing you both at the same address from previous years? Council tax in joint names?

Re: Proof of living together
 

Hi, thank you for your reply.

We have lived together for 8 years now, and yes we’re applying for spousal sponsorship. I put him on my insurance this year, as he doesn’t have a full license yet so it’s so he can get experience with me in the car.

our joint bank account we only opened in October, and his other bank accounts have always been at his parents address. He just never changed anything to our address. The account shows money going into it from him and going straight out to bills etc.

I may just have to put a cover letter explaining how it has always worked for us, and hope for the best.

We have pictures of him around the house with the kids, social media interactions mentioning the house and home etc.

Re: Proof of living together
 

If you’ve got 3 kids together then how about life insurances and wills? Those would normally have addresses on.

Re: Proof of living together
 

We don’t have either life insurance or a will!

Re: Proof of living together
 

Oh blimey. Is marriage an option? None of the stuff you've mentioned shows you're living together, having 3 children together obviously shows you're in a relationship, but you could be living apart so it doesn't prove you're common-law spouses. If you can't prove you live together, could you get married and then apply?

Re: Proof of living together
 

In a case like this and provided they legally can then marriage is the best option otherwise they are relying on an IRCC officer who assesses the application to believe them based on the forms and whatever else they provide to convince the officer they are a genuine couple.

Re: Proof of living together
 

….OR wait until at least some of the proofs of address are one year old before sending your paperwork in - if the joint account has the same address for both of you, I guess that would be October??

Re: Proof of living together
 

Thank you everyone for your reply’s.

Even if we got married, that wouldn’t prove we live together!

ideally we want to get over there next summer as my daughter will be in between primary and high school and my oldest daughter will of finished college!

if we send paperwork in October and the processing time is 12 months then schools will of already started, or can we land once processing has started as long as we have return tickets?

Re: Proof of living together
 

You don't need to if you are married though, it's marriage or living together, not both. As it seems you can't prove you live together at the moment, marriage would mean you could apply asap.

Have a read of the Wiki article, to understand how you could go under 'dual intent' once you have sponsor approval. Assume your children are Canadian citizens? So no issues with going to school before you get PR then. I think you may have to do that anyway, I'd expect processing times to lengthen considerably between now and then given all applications have essentially been on hold for quite some time now, so there will be a bigger backlog to get through.

Re: Proof of living together
 

I have 5 children, the 2 oldest age 16 & 10 are not my partners, we have 3 boys together 7,6 & 4! The boys are Canadian citizens but my daughters aren’t!

Re: Proof of living together
 

OK, so the issue you'll have with going over under 'dual intent' before you and the girls get PR is that although you'll be allowed in to wait until you get PR, you'll only be visitors there i.e. the girls won't be able to go to school. So I think you'll either need to do a quicky wedding (if you can) so that you can apply now as married and hopefully have PR before school starts next August, or be prepared for the girls not being able to start school in Canada until the end of 2021/early 2022.

Assume you've got permission from the girls father to remove them from UK jurisdiction as well? Make sure it's written in the format CIC are looking for, as they're quite hot on that.

Best of luck, hope you can get it sorted.

Re: Proof of living together
 

Thank you christmasoompa for your reply.

At this moment I think we’re going to send everything off with all proofs of address and a cover note as to why there is no utility’s in his name and hope for the best, the worst that can happen is we get a no and re apply in a year.

Both my daughters fathers have agreed to the move, so now I just need to find what they have to do and hopefully that will be straight forward.

Re: Proof of living together
 

https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration...-children.html
Do have a look at our wonderful wiki before filling out the forms for spousal sponsorship - and dependents.. https://britishexpats.com/wiki/Spous...lication_Forms especially the 'Scrutiny' part of this - https://britishexpats.com/wiki/Spous...sorship-Canada - they will want to see a paper trail, to show you are more than 'just good friends' now.. gather as much evidence as you can before applying - you don't want them asking you for more in depth information, which will delay your application. Get Affidavits from your family / his family and don't forget the statutory declaration of Common Law Union https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/ir...s/imm5409e.pdf :) get friends to write letters confirming your relationship... and when you write about the background to your relationship, be detailed and write your 'love story' - you have one shot at convincing them your relationship is genuine and ongoing.. https://britishexpats.com/wiki/Spous...elationship.3F :)

Re: Proof of living together
 

Thank you Siouxie... I’ll definately be filling out the common-law declaration, we have friends and family who are more than willing to fill out declarations about us and our relationship.

I have started writing about relationship today, the first year is full of information but it falls abit flat after that, 8 years is a long time to write about and 7 of them have been normal everyday family life working etc!

of course we’ve had holidays and weekends away which I can provide photographic evidence of and dates, attended a couple of weddings so would I just put the date of these things 🤷🏼‍♀️ But in general it’s very normal everyday life