Common Law questions

[ldissrh]

My gf and I lived in Argentina together for 6 months and now 6 months in Canada.  I am a Canadian resident and she is from Argentina.  Can we apply for the common-law visa even though half the time we spent together was in her home country?

[CharlieD10]

Yes, as long as you can substantiate those 12 months as consecutive cohabitation, it doesn't matter which of your countries it was in.

[ldissrh]

What are the ways in which we could prove that we lived together in Argentina?

[ldissrh]

I studied spanish there .... i believe that i put down her house as my residency but i can't completely remember .... what else could we use as proof?

[CharlieD10]

Did she have a landlord, or were you residing together with family?  Get an affidavit from someone like that who can vouch that you were living together.

If you had to get a student permit, or studied at a school, check your records for Argentina, did you list the address you shared on it as your in-country address?

Did you receive any mail while there, addressed to you or both of you?

[ldissrh]

What about this?

To apply for the Common-Law Partner visa, applicants must provide evidence of an ongoing and genuine relationship and have resided together at a common address for at least 1 year, with a Canadian citizen or permanent resident living in Canada.

Doesn't this mean that it has to be IN CANADA?

[ldissrh]

Did she have a landlord, or were you residing together with family?  Get an affidavit from someone like that who can vouch that you were living together.

If you had to get a student permit, or studied at a school, check your records for Argentina, did you list the address you shared on it as your in-country address?

Did you receive any mail while there, addressed to you or both of you?

Yes she had a landlord and the landlord would write it for us.  But from what i posted above there it makes me think that we have to be living together in canada?

[CharlieD10]

Is she not with you in Canada now?

[AllisonVSC]

What about this?

To apply for the Common-Law Partner visa, applicants must provide evidence of an ongoing and genuine relationship and have resided together at a common address for at least 1 year, with a Canadian citizen or permanent resident living in Canada.

Doesn't this mean that it has to be IN CANADA?

No, it doesn't mean that though I can understand your confusion. You have to cohabitate for at least a year, but if the sponsor is a PR and not a citizen, then the sponsor must be living in Canada. If the sponsor is a citizen it doesn't matter where the sponsor resides when they undertake to sponsor.

[ldissrh]

Is she not with you in Canada now?

Yes she is in Canada right now on a tourist visa.  We lived together in Argentina from December to April and then in Canada from May till now. Her tourist visa expires in April. 

[CharlieD10]

There you go.  So you're on your way to qualifying as common-law then.

No, you don't have to live together solely in Canada, although (as Allison pointed out) that sentence makes it sound that way.  As a citizen, you don't need to be resident in Canada to qualify to sponsor, that "living in Canada" part should be read in conjunction with "permanent resident" only.

[ldissrh]

Well that is awesome news.  And you are 100% sure on this?

Because if so, we are going to start to go through the qualification process tomorrow.  And the letters from the school and our landlord in Argentina should be sufficient?

[CharlieD10]

Yes, I'm sure.  Common-law requires you to prove one year of continuous cohabitation, but for nowhere does it require that the cohabitation NEEDS to be in Canada.  It just needs to be continuous and capable of being substantiated.

Have a read of OP 2, from sections 5.34 on to 5.44 deals with what is required to substantiate a common-law partnership.  Keep this information in mind while you prepare your application: http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/resources/manuals/op/op02-eng.pdf

[sidkrose]

The op2 manual is a great resource, I would definitely recommend it for people applying common-law.

I am 100% sure that you don't have to spend the full year in Canada because my partner and I spent about 10 months together in Canada and then a year in Germany and our application was approved.

If you have any more common-law questions feel free to ask!

[ldissrh]

The time i spent living with my gf can only be substantiated by letters from the spanish school that i attended, our landlord, my gf's boss and our parents.  Would this be enough?