Failure to declare common law partner

[siddhi_sharms]

Hey everyone,
Here is a timeline of events:
1. I applied for my PR in December 2023 and received my PR in May 2024.
2. My partner applied for his PR in November 2024 and received his PR in June 2025.
3. We started living together in December 2023 and became common law in December 2024.

Unfortunately, he did not declare me as common law in his application since we were not aware of this at that time. Hence, we both applied as single applicants.
Now that I know this, I am concerned that this will cause issues with our citizenship application, in which we will be declaring each other as common law.
This is causing me a lot of stress and I am not sure what needs to be done. I am worried we may loose our ability to live here due to this oversight. Is the situation salvageable?

 

[siddhi_sharms]

@scylla @armoured and also anyone else?

 

[cz999]

Hey everyone,
Here is a timeline of events:
1. I applied for my PR in December 2023 and received my PR in May 2024.
2. My partner applied for his PR in November 2024 and received his PR in June 2025.
3. We started living together in December 2023 and became common law in December 2024.

Unfortunately, he did not declare me as common law in his application since we were not aware of this at that time. Hence, we both applied as single applicants.
Now that I know this, I am concerned that this will cause issues with our citizenship application, in which we will be declaring each other as common law.
This is causing me a lot of stress and I am not sure what needs to be done. I am worried we may loose our ability to live here due to this oversight. Is the situation salvageable?

To be honest since you became PR at different times and may also apply for citizenship at different times on yourselves (separately), the question may not even come up. When I applied for citizenship there was only a question about my marital status and it doesn’t even ask for my partner’s name (I am a single citizenship applicant but not through sponsorship from my partner, my partner is a citizen). So I don’t think it will necessarily cause any issue on itself.

Of course your partner should’ve declared your relationship during PR, but it doesn’t technically materially impact the process because you are already a PR yourself, so if push comes to shove, I think there is a decent chance of you arguing this is not material misrepresentation. But hopefully it won’t ever come to that.

 

[armoured]

Hey everyone,
Here is a timeline of events:
1. I applied for my PR in December 2023 and received my PR in May 2024.
2. My partner applied for his PR in November 2024 and received his PR in June 2025.
3. We started living together in December 2023 and became common law in December 2024.

Unfortunately, he did not declare me as common law in his application since we were not aware of this at that time. Hence, we both applied as single applicants.
Now that I know this, I am concerned that this will cause issues with our citizenship application, in which we will be declaring each other as common law.
This is causing me a lot of stress and I am not sure what needs to be done. I am worried we may loose our ability to live here due to this oversight. Is the situation salvageable?

Actually nothing to worry about in your specific case.

You were already a PR as of May 2024, i.e. by the time that you became common law partners in December 2025. Therefore at that point you were not eligible for sponsorship (someone who is already a PR cannot be sponsored to become one).

Which means that while he did make an error in not reporting you as his spouse, it was inconsequential with respect to his own application. And inconsequential to you, because you are already a PR.

Therefore: in your case (VERY much the minority of such cases) this error is not material. Nothing to worry about. It will not impact your citizenship application(s) in future, nor your ability to live here.

[Warning for others: if the timeline had been that Partner A applies for PR and /at any time before becoming a PR/ gets married or becomes common-law partner (i.e. by having completed 12 months of cohabitation), then Partner B can /never/ be sponsored. That said, the PR status of Partner A is usually not revoked - the only consequence is the ban on spnosoring that partner. Hypothetically Partner B could still apply for PR under some other program and qualify on their own, i.e. the 'ban' is not on Partner B becoming a PR, but on Partner A sponsoring Partner B.

 

[armoured]

Point of clarity as I didn't answer: information on spouses/marital situation is collected via the form, so tell the truth on that. But it's not a qualifying matter and not an issue - as far as I'm aware collected just for statistical purposes.

 

[siddhi_sharms]

To be honest since you became PR at different times and may also apply for citizenship at different times on yourselves (separately), the question may not even come up. When I applied for citizenship there was only a question about my marital status and it doesn’t even ask for my partner’s name (I am a single citizenship applicant but not through sponsorship from my partner, my partner is a citizen). So I don’t think it will necessarily cause any issue on itself.

Of course your partner should’ve declared your relationship during PR, but it doesn’t technically materially impact the process because you are already a PR yourself, so if push comes to shove, I think there is a decent chance of you arguing this is not material misrepresentation. But hopefully it won’t ever come to that.

Thanks a lot for the detailed response, I agree, it doesn’t seem to be material misrepresentation. Do you think it’s of any value to let them know now by calling them?

 

[siddhi_sharms]

Point of clarity as I didn't answer: information on spouses/marital situation is collected via the form, so tell the truth on that. But it's not a qualifying matter and not an issue - as far as I'm aware collected just for statistical purposes.

Makes sense to me, thanks a lot for the detailed response. Will be more careful about these things in the future

 

[armoured]

Thanks a lot for the detailed response, I agree, it doesn’t seem to be material misrepresentation. Do you think it’s of any value to let them know now by calling them?

No.

 

[armoured]

Point of clarity as I didn't answer: information on spouses/marital situation is collected via the form, so tell the truth on that. But it's not a qualifying matter and not an issue - as far as I'm aware collected just for statistical purposes.

I should have written via the citizenship application form (in future that is).