Marriage v's Common Law

[cejiri]

Hi,

I am a Canadian Resident (landed immigrant in Oct 2010 now living in Vancouver) and my Spanish girlfriend moved with me to Canada on Oct 2010 on a Working Holiday Visa to see if she would be happy living here with me. I am happy to say she likes life here and we have decided recently to go ahead and sponsor her and arrange her Residency in Canada.

We have read in various blogs and posts that applying as Common Law partners we need to show proof of financial ties as well as proof we have lived together over a year. Although we have been together for over 3 years we dont have any paperwork to prove this and whilst living in Spain we lived in seperate home.

It appears that if we get married and apply as husband and wife they only require a Marriage Certificate as proof of our partnership (I understand we also have to prove our relationship with emails, photos etc... but this is standard for the whole application).

Can someone please confirm that marriage would allow us to prove our relationship and 'skip' the problems we have proving Common Law status?

On another note, we are not in a rush to get married at the moment and if we had the option would like to arrange it with more time in the not so near future but if it makes this process easier we will consider it and arrange the marriage paperwork as soon as possible.

We really appreciate your feedback and thanks!

C and R

[Leon]

Marriage would allow you to skip the part about proving having lived together for 12 months but you would still have to prove that you are in a genuine relationship and didn't just get married for immigration purposes.