Thread for Outland LONDON, UK Applications!

[Sweden]

Thanks for that Sweden, so helpful as always.
Ok so I paid the fee today and sent off receipt to both Miss. & London. Lets hope they just add it and now there will be no delays!
I thought you had to wait to pay until you were approved or I would have done it sooner! I checked with our lawyer and she gave me the go ahead too.
Fingers crossed that's it and I just have to wait for my app to be opened up

You have the choice - either you pay up front the total amount (1040), or you can wait and pay the last part (RPRF) when they ask, but if you do that, it delays your file between 3 to 4 weeks apparently, so most people choose ( when they know) to pay everything up-front and avoid possible delays.
Now that you have paid and both parts are aware, you should be good!
Good luck on your application, it'll be your turn soon!
Sweden

 

[sfeire]

You have the choice - either you pay up front the total amount (1040), or you can wait and pay the last part (RPRF) when they ask, but if you do that, it delays your file between 3 to 4 weeks apparently, so most people choose ( when they know) to pay everything up-front and avoid possible delays.
Now that you have paid and both parts are aware, you should be good!
Good luck on your application, it'll be your turn soon!
Sweden

Well I reckon there's still some time before they get to my file so they should be able to update it with the receipt and it will all be there for them when they go to process it! I just wish I knew sooner. I do NOT want any possible delays!
Back to the waiting game

 

[johare12]

I gave in to my impatience and asked London for an update
Here's my reply
"Your application is pending a full review. The review is expected to be completed within the next 10 working days. We will be in contact as soon as there have been any further developments with the processing of your file."

I guess it's good I just wish they'd hurry it up haha

 

[nmford]

Earlier on in my application London were pretty good at replying to my questions.

For over 2 weeks now they have been completely silent on me and haven't answered my inquiries...

 

[kaede1977]

Hey everyone, just wanted to send a quick update!!! we arrived to Vancouver yesterday without COPR...was a bit nervous as the customs officer waived us through to the back to speak with a senior supervisor.Thanks to the advice from everyone on this forum, we were totally honest with him and explained our situation that we had been waiting over 8 months since we first began our application process back in April and that we wanted to spend Christmas with our family and had all our important documents in hand but that we also had return flights booked as a backup just in case! After a few questions and 10-15min of them doing background checks on our file to make sure our stories were in order we were given the OK to enter Canada to wait out the rest of the processing time ;D Just checked our ECAS status and PR application status still says application recieved but our new mailing address has been updated...We kept our arrival a suprise from my parents and when we showed up at their door and it was definitely an emotional reunion!! hopefully not long now til we recieve COPR and can drive down to the US border to flagpole and officially "land"
Hard to believe we actually made it back to Canada but the double double's this morning from Timmy's was definitely a reality check ;D Good luck to everyone and hopefully we all hear some good news by Christmas!!

 

[Canooknic]

Hey everyone, just wanted to send a quick update!!! we arrived to Vancouver yesterday without COPR...was a bit nervous as the customs officer waived us through to the back to speak with a senior supervisor.Thanks to the advice from everyone on this forum, we were totally honest with him and explained our situation that we had been waiting over 8 months since we first began our application process back in April and that we wanted to spend Christmas with our family and had all our important documents in hand but that we also had return flights booked as a backup just in case! After a few questions and 10-15min of them doing background checks on our file to make sure our stories were in order we were given the OK to enter Canada to wait out the rest of the processing time ;D Just checked our ECAS status and PR application status still says application recieved but our new mailing address has been updated...We kept our arrival a suprise from my parents and when we showed up at their door and it was definitely an emotional reunion!! hopefully not long now til we recieve COPR and can drive down to the US border to flagpole and officially "land"
Hard to believe we actually made it back to Canada but the double double's this morning from Timmy's was definitely a reality check ;D Good luck to everyone and hopefully we all hear some good news by Christmas!!

That's nice!! What a lovely surprise for your parents.
Congrats on making it over, and have a Timmy-tastic Christmas xx (the novelty still hasn't worn off for me and I've been back for 18 months!! Cinnamon rolls - YUM!!)

 

[msmith1789]

Hello All!

I just thought I would jump in and say hello to you all. I have been watching and reading this forum for a while now and I would like to say a big thank you for your advice beforehand.

My name is Matt, and to cut a long story shorter, I moved to Canada in 2007 with my parents under the skilled worker program (started that in 2003), we became PR's in June 2007, I recently got my citizenship in March 2012 and before I moved to Canada, I was dating my high school Sweetheart, Jen, and now we are looking at sponsoring her under the Family class as a common law partner. (We have been dating for over 8 years now, living almost 1 year due to long distance relationship)

We are sending our paperwork off in February. via the London VO, as that is when we will have officially lived together in our Apartment. Prior to this we had a long distance relationship and flew between BC and Manchester, UK back and forth every 3-4 months Max. - along with 2 Bunac Student working Visas (which have really helped us), we managed to pull through and decided to make a go of sponsoring her, (also British).

We are pretty much starting to fill in the paperwork and just last week she went for her medical in Vancouver, so we have that in order by February. We have recently sent off for her police check via APCO in Hampshire, UK which they received yesterday. I personally am not unfamiliar when it comes to CIC and the paperwork, but each category of immigration has its own differences and would like to give many thanks to all of your contributions as it has greatly benefited us.

If anyone has any advice/tips it would be much appreciated and we can't wait to get the ball rolling come February! ;D - look forward to hearing more from you all!

Matt

 

[frege]

Hello All!

I just thought I would jump in and say hello to you all. I have been watching and reading this forum for a while now and I would like to say a big thank you for your advice beforehand.

My name is Matt, and to cut a long story shorter, I moved to Canada in 2007 with my parents under the skilled worker program (started that in 2003), we became PR's in June 2007, I recently got my citizenship in March 2012 and before I moved to Canada, I was dating my high school Sweetheart, Jen, and now we are looking at sponsoring her under the Family class as a common law partner. (We have been dating for over 8 years now, living almost 1 year due to long distance relationship)

We are sending our paperwork off in February. via the London VO, as that is when we will have officially lived together in our Apartment. Prior to this we had a long distance relationship and flew between BC and Manchester, UK back and forth every 3-4 months Max. - along with 2 Bunac Student working Visas (which have really helped us), we managed to pull through and decided to make a go of sponsoring her, (also British).

We are pretty much starting to fill in the paperwork and just last week she went for her medical in Vancouver, so we have that in order by February. We have recently sent off for her police check via APCO in Hampshire, UK which they received yesterday. I personally am not unfamiliar when it comes to CIC and the paperwork, but each category of immigration has its own differences and would like to give many thanks to all of your contributions as it has greatly benefited us.

If anyone has any advice/tips it would be much appreciated and we can't wait to get the ball rolling come February! ;D - look forward to hearing more from you all!

Matt

Hello Matt,

Make sure that the VO doesn't believe you were common-law partners at any time before you became a permanent resident. If they do, you're likely to have big problems. In particular, any long periods of "cohabitation" before you became a permanent resident could be a bad thing. The authorities will want an explanation for any periods when you both lived at the same address. It may be that there are some age criteria that automatically prevent you from having been common-law partners at that time, though I'm not sure of this.

While your case is probably different, please read through the following thread to get a general idea of the issues involved.

http://www.canadavisa.com/canada-immigration-discussion-board/possible-denial-under-para-1179-non-declaration-of-family-member-t126692.0.html

 

[sfeire]

Hello All!

I just thought I would jump in and say hello to you all. I have been watching and reading this forum for a while now and I would like to say a big thank you for your advice beforehand.

My name is Matt, and to cut a long story shorter, I moved to Canada in 2007 with my parents under the skilled worker program (started that in 2003), we became PR's in June 2007, I recently got my citizenship in March 2012 and before I moved to Canada, I was dating my high school Sweetheart, Jen, and now we are looking at sponsoring her under the Family class as a common law partner. (We have been dating for over 8 years now, living almost 1 year due to long distance relationship)

We are sending our paperwork off in February. via the London VO, as that is when we will have officially lived together in our Apartment. Prior to this we had a long distance relationship and flew between BC and Manchester, UK back and forth every 3-4 months Max. - along with 2 Bunac Student working Visas (which have really helped us), we managed to pull through and decided to make a go of sponsoring her, (also British).

We are pretty much starting to fill in the paperwork and just last week she went for her medical in Vancouver, so we have that in order by February. We have recently sent off for her police check via APCO in Hampshire, UK which they received yesterday. I personally am not unfamiliar when it comes to CIC and the paperwork, but each category of immigration has its own differences and would like to give many thanks to all of your contributions as it has greatly benefited us.

If anyone has any advice/tips it would be much appreciated and we can't wait to get the ball rolling come February! ;D - look forward to hearing more from you all!

Matt

Hello Matt,

Make sure that the VO doesn't believe you were common-law partners at any time before you became a permanent resident. If they do, you're likely to have big problems. In particular, any long periods of "cohabitation" before you became a permanent resident could be a bad thing. The authorities will want an explanation for any periods when you both lived at the same address. It may be that there are some age criteria that automatically prevent you from having been common-law partners at that time, though I'm not sure of this.

While your case is probably different, please read through the following thread to get a general idea of the issues involved.

http://www.canadavisa.com/canada-immigration-discussion-board/possible-denial-under-para-1179-non-declaration-of-family-member-t126692.0.html

Hi Matt,

As Frege has explained, there can be problems with the sponsorship if you haven't declared a common-law or spouse previously. There are many factors they look at and each case is different. Myself and my husband had lived together for a year just after we got engaged. however we lived with other people for the majority of that time and also in Ireland we don;t have common law and we would have never considered ourselves to be, as we are from a catholic country and being together over 10 years we had every intention of getting married.
To cut a long story short, we were given some information and basically told he could never sponsor me as he didn't declare me as his common-law partner when he landed - bottom line, no other options. So we were advised to see a lawyer to see what our options were. We had the most amazing lawyer who got all her facts together, did brilliant research and basically guided us through the entire process. We argued that we were not common law as we considered ourselves fiances at the time with every intention of getting married. We provided a hell of a lot of evidence to support this.
If they were going to reject our application, we wouldn't have gotten passed the sponsorship approval as my husband would have been found to have misrepresented himself.
He was approved as my sponsor in August.
We couldn't have done this without the help of a lawyer who really put everything into it and fought our case excellently. It was costly but worth it in the end as hopefully I will get my residency soon and myself and my husband can really start our life here.
My advice would be to maybe contact a lawyer before you start your application. Most times you can just pay for a consultation and give them all your info and they could tell you if you would have any issues. You could then decide whether to use a representative or not.

I hope this helps, maybe you wouldn't have any of these issues (hopefully not) but its worth looking into.

 

[msmith1789]

We started going out together when we were 15 and then I moved to Canada when I was 18 at this time and prior to, we both lived with our parents. I am 100% confident we can prove we did not live together before I became PR/Citizen.

In regards to what sfeire said "there can be problems with the sponsorship if you haven't declared a common-law or spouse previously" - how/when/where would/Should we have declared ourselves to be common-law partners? - I mean, we are both 23, just began living together in February this year, which is why we are submitting the application late february 2013. - Should we be worried if we didn't let the government know "we are living together as common-law as of x day of x month of x year"?? -

To be honest, this has just thrown me down another alley now, where it's not clear as to my understanding - any further advice is much appreciated.

 

[Sweden]

I gave in to my impatience and asked London for an update
Here's my reply
"Your application is pending a full review. The review is expected to be completed within the next 10 working days. We will be in contact as soon as there have been any further developments with the processing of your file."

I guess it's good I just wish they'd hurry it up haha

Would be a nice Christmas present!

Earlier on in my application London were pretty good at replying to my questions.

For over 2 weeks now they have been completely silent on me and haven't answered my inquiries...

Hopefully they can't be bothered ( not that I think it's right or anything...) to answer because they are finalising your PR, so they are thinking "they'll know soon enough"

Hey everyone, just wanted to send a quick update!!! we arrived to Vancouver yesterday without COPR...was a bit nervous as the customs officer waived us through to the back to speak with a senior supervisor.Thanks to the advice from everyone on this forum, we were totally honest with him and explained our situation that we had been waiting over 8 months since we first began our application process back in April and that we wanted to spend Christmas with our family and had all our important documents in hand but that we also had return flights booked as a backup just in case! After a few questions and 10-15min of them doing background checks on our file to make sure our stories were in order we were given the OK to enter Canada to wait out the rest of the processing time ;D Just checked our ECAS status and PR application status still says application recieved but our new mailing address has been updated...We kept our arrival a suprise from my parents and when we showed up at their door and it was definitely an emotional reunion!! hopefully not long now til we recieve COPR and can drive down to the US border to flagpole and officially "land"
Hard to believe we actually made it back to Canada but the double double's this morning from Timmy's was definitely a reality check ;D Good luck to everyone and hopefully we all hear some good news by Christmas!!

Oh wow! that's an awesome surprise!! moving from the other side of the world close to your parents and not informing them - impressive!
Welcome to Canada (and the West Coast!)!

Sweden

 

[Swedish citizen]

Hi Matt,

As Frege has explained, there can be problems with the sponsorship if you haven't declared a common-law or spouse previously. There are many factors they look at and each case is different. Myself and my husband had lived together for a year just after we got engaged. however we lived with other people for the majority of that time and also in Ireland we don;t have common law and we would have never considered ourselves to be, as we are from a catholic country and being together over 10 years we had every intention of getting married.
To cut a long story short, we were given some information and basically told he could never sponsor me as he didn't declare me as his common-law partner when he landed - bottom line, no other options. So we were advised to see a lawyer to see what our options were. We had the most amazing lawyer who got all her facts together, did brilliant research and basically guided us through the entire process. We argued that we were not common law as we considered ourselves fiances at the time with every intention of getting married. We provided a hell of a lot of evidence to support this.
If they were going to reject our application, we wouldn't have gotten passed the sponsorship approval as my husband would have been found to have misrepresented himself.
He was approved as my sponsor in August.
We couldn't have done this without the help of a lawyer who really put everything into it and fought our case excellently. It was costly but worth it in the end as hopefully I will get my residency soon and myself and my husband can really start our life here.
My advice would be to maybe contact a lawyer before you start your application. Most times you can just pay for a consultation and give them all your info and they could tell you if you would have any issues. You could then decide whether to use a representative or not.

I hope this helps, maybe you wouldn't have any of these issues (hopefully not) but its worth looking into.

I get a little nervous when I read this. I spend a lot of time in Canada right now, on a visitor visa. For us it wasn't an option for me to stay in Sweden until our sponsorship application gets approved in London, first step is approved. We both lived in Europe when he got a new job here in Canada and had to leave with short notice.

Maybe I'm naive, but I thought it's OK for me to stay with my boyfriend during the application time since I have a valid visitor visa? Or should I go back and wait in Sweden? We don't want to be that far away from each other for such a long time...

 

[Sweden]

We started going out together when we were 15 and then I moved to Canada when I was 18 at this time and prior to, we both lived with our parents. I am 100% confident we can prove we did not live together before I became PR/Citizen.

In regards to what sfeire said "there can be problems with the sponsorship if you haven't declared a common-law or spouse previously" - how/when/where would/Should we have declared ourselves to be common-law partners? - I mean, we are both 23, just began living together in February this year, which is why we are submitting the application late february 2013. - Should we be worried if we didn't let the government know "we are living together as common-law as of x day of x month of x year"?? -

To be honest, this has just thrown me down another alley now, where it's not clear as to my understanding - any further advice is much appreciated.

YOu don't need to declare that you have been living together when you started, you will need proofs that you do live together now. As for what the other posters explained, if it doesn't apply to your case, it will be apparent from your application. If you have never lived together before (shared an address, even with other people etc), then you're good to go. From what you say, it seems to be the case, so no worries. It was mentioned because there has been a few cases of people posting about that on the forum, and they are always difficult cases. If it's not applicable to you, you can do the application on your own, and with help from the forum too, you should be good.
One thing - the police certificate have a 3 months validity - you need to send them to CIC 3 months from the date they were issued. If you send it in February, you're good, but just keep that in mind.
Medical certificate - it has a one year validity, which means that if you do it "early" ( as in your case), you will have one year from the date of medicals to land (unless CIC decides to give you an extension, which is always a possibility). My advice is : get everything ready, and as soon as you turn 1 year common-law, send your application in, otherwise you might have to re-do some police certificate or medicals exams later on.
Also - pay the full amount right away : 1040$, you can choose not to pay the RPRF but it will delay your file at the end, so if you can, pay everything up-front.
Good luck on your application ( and welcome to London VO thread!),
Sweden

 

[Sweden]

I get a little nervous when I read this. I spend a lot of time in Canada right now, on a visitor visa. For us it wasn't an option for me to stay in Sweden until our sponsorship application gets approved in London, first step is approved. We both lived in Europe when he got a new job here in Canada and had to leave with short notice.

Maybe I'm naive, but I thought it's OK for me to stay with my boyfriend during the application time since I have a valid visitor visa? Or should I go back and wait in Sweden? We don't want to be that far away from each other for such a long time...

YOu're fine to stay, no worries. The case mentioned here is different - it's about whether the sponsor (not the applicant) was in a common-law relationship BEFORE he became PR himself (he emigrated to Canada with his family, became a PR, became a citizen, and then sponsors his common-law partner). If the sponsor is a PR and had a relationship before landing in Canada but did not declare his relationship, he can NEVER sponsor his common-law partner. that's why it's mentioned here.

You can stay in Canada as long as your visitor visa allows you to, no worries!
Sweden

 

[Swedish citizen]

YOu're fine to stay, no worries. The case mentioned here is different - it's about whether the sponsor (not the applicant) was in a common-law relationship BEFORE he became PR himself (he emigrated to Canada with his family, became a PR, became a citizen, and then sponsors his common-law partner). If the sponsor is a PR and had a relationship before landing in Canada but did not declare his relationship, he can NEVER sponsor his common-law partner. that's why it's mentioned here.

You can stay in Canada as long as your visitor visa allows you to, no worries!
Sweden

Tack, tack, Sweden, you saved me again! I find new things to get worried about the whole time, I'll have grey hair before this is over...