include Common Law partner into application afterwards?

[Wilton]

March 2006 - submitted application for Skilled Worker PR to London (UK) office
May 2006 - received AOR from London

Hi, so the situation is:
at the time I submitted my application, my Canadian girlfriend and I were living together for about 9 months. Therefore we were not 'Common Law' partners (in the CIC defined way) and I did not include or mention her in my application. I far as I understand, from August 2006 she would fulfill the requirements to be a 'Common Law partner'. Until now I have not amended my application or informed CIC Canada in any other way.

So my questions:
1) do I have to tell CIC about the fact that I'm together with a Canadian as my 'Common Law' partner or is this only optional?
2) how would I actually amend the application? Re-submit the forms including her? What other documents would I need to submit for her?
3) would this rather delay or speed up the process?

Thank you very much for any advice or help!

[Wilton]

Hi,
does anyone has any experience on the 'commom law partner' question?
If and how to mention this in an Skilled Worker PR application?
thank you

[PMM]

Hi

Hi,
does anyone has any experience on the 'commom law partner' question?
If and how to mention this in an Skilled Worker PR application?
thank you

1.  If you are living common-law with a Canadian and can prove it, then why are you bothering with Skilled Worker? 
2.  You are looking at 27-54 months at London for SW (and rising) while a c/law-spousal application will take 32 days in Mississauga and another 3-7 months at London
3.  So withdraw your SW application, have your partner submit a sponsorship with your application, include the medical and police checks, to Mississauga, along with a letter outlining what s/he intends to do when s/he returns to Canada, as to housing, work.
4.  Ensure that sufficient evidence is included with the application to conclusively prove the C/law relationship.

PMM

[thaiguy]

1) Yes, you absolutely have to tell CIC about your common-law partner.  Remember that your application required you to sign indicating you didn't have such a relationship.  Now that your status has changed, you must notify CIC.  If you don't, they can use that as a reason to deny your application.

2) You amend your application by re-submitting the forms that have changed.  Be thorough, as this affects your IMM8 and your additional family information (IMM5406).  You also have to prove your relationship, which means you should provide evidence of shared bills (phone, utilities, TV), rent/lease agreements, joint bank accounts, insurance coverage, loans, etc.  You don't need all of those, but you want to present a convincing case that 1) you lived together, and 2) you had financial/legal ties.  Make as strong a case as you can.

3) If you stay with the skilled worker application, filing an amendment this early shouldn't affect the timing at all.

[Wilton]

to PMM: I thought about the 'sponsorship' solution, but I kind of don't wanna depend in my application on my girlfriend. It's just that I wanna be granted PR based on my application and not based on the fact that my girlfriend happens to be Canadian etc... also, we don't have imminent plans to move to Canada so the time factor wasn't too much of a concern initially...

to thaiguy: amending and re-submitting the forms would have been my first guess too... but then I don't yet fully understand the concept of 'common law', you write that if I don't inform CIC, "they can use that as a reason to deny your application".... but when are you really 'common law'? Just living together for more than 12 months... I mean, couldn't you always say that although you were technically calcifying for 'common law' you didn't consider yourself being that committed or so on....

So, does including my girlfriend as common law partner into the PR application actually change anything substantial in terms of processing times, chances to be accepted or anything similar... ?

thank you!

[thaiguy]

You are 'common law' if you live together for 12 months in a conjugal relationship.  If you argue that you didn't consider yourself being that committed, I'd just say be very careful.  If you say one thing and they look at your information and come to a different conclusion, they could believe you were trying to deceive them.

I've heard of a situation when a permanent residence applicant went to the interview and brought their common law partner with them.  Their common law status had changed since filing the original application - so the original application was correct.  But since they hadn't updated the visa office with an amended application, the visa officer claimed they'd submitted misleading information.  I don't know how it was resolved, but you can see this is a dicey circumstance.  It's best to keep them up to date.

From what I've heard, adding your common law partner will not affect the timing of your application as long as they haven't begun processing it yet.  If you've only received your AOR 6-12 months prior, then chances are very very good they haven't taken a second look at your application since receiving it, and submitting the amendment will therefore not affect timing.

Also, adding your common law should not negatively affect a skilled worker application.  The application is based on your qualifications primarily, with your common law only adding a few points, possibly.

Bottom line - get the information to them as soon as possible.