Hi guys,
I need some help regarding a Procedural Fairness Letter that we received today. Below are the contents:
"We continue to process your application for permanent residence and in light of the change to your marital status, we require clarification and updated information/documents.
Specifically, to determine whether a skilled worker will be able to become economically established in Canada as a member of the Federal Skilled Worker Class, they must meet the settlement funds requirement “in the form of transferable and available funds, unencumbered by debts or other obligations” pursuant to sub-paragraph 76(1)(b)(i) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations.
Please provide the following updated documents:
Official letters issued in the last month from any banks or financial institutions, which must:
be printed on the financial institution’s letterhead
include their contact information (address, telephone number and email address)
include your name and the current date
list outstanding debts such as credit card debts and loans
include, for each current bank and investment account, o the account numbers, and the date each account was opened o current balance of each account, and the average balance for the past 6 months
Additionally, you and your spouse indicated that you lived together before marriage. In the immigration context, a common-law partnership means that a couple have lived together for at least one year in a conjugal relationship as per R1(1) of the Regulations. In the Relationship Assessment Questionnaires completed by you and your spouse, you stated that you began living together at his residence in 2019, and your spouse stated that “She moved into my apartment in early 2019 and we have been living together since then.” However the most recent IMM 5669 (Schedule A) form completed and signed by you on December 3, 2021 shows the most recent address change beginning September 2019.
Please provide the following:
An explanation in writing as to your residency time periods and cohabitation period prior to marriage
Please note that the requested information/documents must be received within 7 days from the date of this letter. Please upload these documents to your MyCIC account."
FYI we both have individual Express Entry FSW outland applications in the final stages and our profiles were linked in Jan 2022 and we could see each other as dependents on our accounts. At the time of applying (Jan 2020), we were not married and once we got married (Jan 2021) we had informed them.
Last week we had mailed them, asking them to finalize our applications and yesterday we got this PFL.
1. When we applied, we had shown proof of funds for 1 person. Now that they are asking for it again, we need to provide proof to support 2 people correct? For this we can also pool spouse's funds right?
2. They seem to think that we were in common law/ conjugal relationship before marriage. We weren't in one. We were living together since Sept 2019 to July 2020. But I mentioned by mistake in the questionnaire as "early 2019". Can we explain to them that this was an unintentional mistake and show them proof of travel tickets and grocery purchases to show that we were not living together before Sept 2019? We had looked this up at the time of applying and since we never stayed continuously for a year together, we didn't see ourselves as in a common law relationship.
Please let me know your thoughts on this.
