Things to consider in a new relationship that could lead to immigration

[SmoothiesQueen]

This seems to me to be a serious topic. Myself and many others I see on here, would have had a much easier process if someone had told us the first day we met our spouses, long before engagement and marriage, things to start collecting for immigration purposes. Instead many of us ended up scrambling to seek out and track down any evidence we can find, to prove our cases.

So I was thinking this would be a good place for people of all countries, who are in this process, to give others advice on things to start saving from the beginning, that will be useful in putting together an application and supporting evidence once its their time to begin the process.

Things I wish I'd started saving:

- Phone bills showing the amount of times his number called me and I called him
- Receipts from trips, dates, things we bought together.
- Chat logs...for some reason I never imagined I would ever need them as the immigration process was so foriegn to me.
- Taking more pictures to document. Sometimes you don't think to take them in ordinary life, but its important for immigration.


What are other things people suggest you start collecting from the beginning of a new relationship that is leading towards eventual immigration for one of the parties???

 

[awor]

Not just photos of the 2 of you (which I am also lacking, SIGH), but photos of each of you interacting with each other's friends and family. I don't have any pictures of the kids and I meeting some of his family while we were in Alberta, just some photos of them on their horses and my husband taking them for rides in a tractor. That might be good enough, but I would love to be able to send more photos with all the other people who met.

 

[jamaicanincanada]

If you are in a common law relationship, especially if you move into your partner's place or vice versa, make sure that you have your name added or have your partner's name added to the lease/rental agreement from the first day that both of you start living together!

 

[missmini]

If you are in a common law relationship, especially if you move into your partner's place or vice versa, make sure that you have your name added or have your partner's name added to the lease/rental agreement from the first day that both of you start living together!

yeah that's very good advice...

but, when it's a new relationship, from the very fist day, i doubt u think of marriage and immigration afterwards....if u do have all the proofs from the beginning, everything they ask, maybe it could look suspicious...not having everything and give a reasonable explanation why, it's good too

 

[AlieW]

If you are in a common law relationship, especially if you move into your partner's place or vice versa, make sure that you have your name added or have your partner's name added to the lease/rental agreement from the first day that both of you start living together!

AGREED!! - Not only should you get both names on the lease right away - but do the same with all the bills (utility, phone, internet, ...), and change your drivers licenses, and mailing information to match the new address! Also, open a joint bank account, even if you only keep a small amount in it and still maintain separate accounts, it's great evidence.

 

[malirca]

another one that you can add in there is name them as a beneficiary in a will or insurance.

 

[kourts]

if u do have all the proofs from the beginning, everything they ask, maybe it could look suspicious...not having everything and give a reasonable explanation why, it's good too

That's exactly what I was thinking. I've known my spouse for 4 years. and we don't have any convos from the first few years. Immigration never crossed our minds, and we didn't even know what was needed for it. everyone always made moving to Canada look so easy an simple as just getting married, boy how wrong they are.Never thought I'd need all my old conversations that I never saved anyways.

from one point of view a lot of proof and everything could look suspicious and planned. but from another point of view a lack of evidence, could make the relationship look fake. I guess it all depends on the person that looks at your application.

 

[malirca]

its a catch 22.
no winning either way.
cuz you might have proof because you spent time collecting it, or you have online receipts, skypre records that you can go back to 1 year of records, that what i did.
it definitely took alot of time searching, but i had many of the things listed, not because i was planning, it just happened to be that i never delete my inbox.. hahha
that i'm a total paparrazzi and am always taking pictures.
plus when i planned on sponsoring him and started the ball rolling, to when we actually sent out the application, it was more than 6 months, so i spent all my time searching and searching and before i knew it, my package was huge, but it included the majority of things that they ask for.
not sure if that is a bad thing or good thing that it was a big package, but i guess i will find out in a couple of weeks when i get a response from cpc :

 

[Kaycee1]

I was lucky actually because my son married an American girl about 4 years ago and has been living in the US since then. I saw all that he went through collecting all the proof of their relationship, so I started early with ours. We have a big box of "stuff" - anything that I thought might be pertinent. We sent a LOT of it off with the application, but not everything actually.

Good idea for a thread though!!!

 

[Boracay]

My concern is........can we admit and show the fact that we have been collecting evidence since 6 months before our application is sent?

I know they have a trained eye to look for "relationships of convenience" for immigration purposes.

I'm just worried that us admitting and show we've been collecting evidence for 6 months (or really anytime before our application is sent) will look fabricated.

For example I've collected 8 months of facebook posts she sent me. But now since I've been collecting them anything further in he future may seem very likely that she sent them only for evidence.

 

[canadianwoman]

The key is to make sure that the frequency and topics don't change too drastically. If you previously sent each other one email a week, but as soon as you decided to immigrate, started emailing several times a day, then yes, it would look fake.
In some appeals I've seen, the judge has mentioned that the frequency of telephone calls was the same before and after the PR refusal, and so he believed that they were genuine; or said that there were letters and cards sent, but only after a PR refusal, so he figured they were just doing it to make the marriage look genuine.