Anyone want to join a thread for people applying in the near future?

[Smsm81]

Hello future PR
I have a question and I am hoping to find an answer.
its imm5285e question 3 ; are you currently living with your sponsor ? period of cohabitation from : to? so I am not sure if i should put a date under to or leave it blank?
Thanks

 

[Alliejk]

Hi Everyone,

Thought I would join this thread since we are almost done our application but have not sent it through yet. I have done soooo much research so hoping I have everything we need.

Our situation is:
- I am the Canadian sponsor living overseas in NZ with Husband (Applicant) to we are applying outland
- Application is going to Canada then to the Sydney, Aus office
- Medical Done
- Application forms Done
- Evidence Ready
- Waiting on police clearances arriving next week

Can't wait to move home so fingers crossed everything is all good and it processes quickly

 

[lleahdoll]

Hello future PR
I have a question and I am hoping to find an answer.
its imm5285e question 3 ; are you currently living with your sponsor ? period of cohabitation from : to? so I am not sure if i should put a date under to or leave it blank?
Thanks

Hi! Welcome!!
That is a VERY good question and one I was debating as well... I don't know your situation but for me, I have been "visiting" my husband since December 2012 in 6 month increments (leaving for a 1-3 weeks in between). So I don't know if THEY count that as living. I know not to say "living" to border officers at the airport but I don't know what CIC expects..

Hi Everyone,

Thought I would join this thread since we are almost done our application but have not sent it through yet. I have done soooo much research so hoping I have everything we need.

Our situation is:
- I am the Canadian sponsor living overseas in NZ with Husband (Applicant) to we are applying outland
- Application is going to Canada then to the Sydney, Aus office
- Medical Done
- Application forms Done
- Evidence Ready
- Waiting on police clearances arriving next week

Can't wait to move home so fingers crossed everything is all good and it processes quickly

Hi! Welcome, glad to have you!
Keep us updated and let us know when you send the forms

 

[CutiePie92]

heya all! we just pasted all of our skype conversations in MS Word and we have.... 2000 f**kin pages!!! seriously?! don't even know what to do about it ;D

we also have dirty conversations so we need to censor it a lot too :-[ does anyone else have this annoying problem? seems like it will take an eternity to finish that

 

[commonlawsponsor]

I don't think I already mentioned this and it might be useful for those putting together their applications. I know this won't be helpful to everyone (depending on where you are from/resources in your city) but it might help a couple people out there.

When I called my family's lawyer to inquire about signing some statutory declarations/affidavits he referred me to my local heritage council. An employee there was able to administer oaths or whatever is needed for statutory declarations, in my case needed for a common-law relationship. This employee works with immigrants to our community and was very knowledgable about the application process. She offered to help me fill out any forms, look them over, gave me additional information sheets about the application in plain, easy to understand information (vs trying to figure exactly what the CIC means), general pointers and tips (ex. handwrite page numbers on the bottom of your application and photocopy each page, just in case CIC loses anything). She was patient and knew much more about what I was asking then the lawyer did. And best of all it was free. We made a donation to the heritage council (to help immigrants in our community) as a thank you.


THE IMPORTANT PART ----> If you are stressed about completing the application yourself, I think this is a much better alternative to hiring a lawyer. I suggest phoning around and seeing if there is someone in your community to help you with it. (My lawyer might have only known about this because they are next door to the heritage council. Cool )



PS - I'm from a small city of 50,000 and was quite surprised to find someone in the community that deals with this stuff. You might be surprised what your city has to offer! Grin


UPDATE: I found a government website with an interactive map to where you can perhaps find help with your application:
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/newcomers/map/services.asp

 

[agarand8]

heya all! we just pasted all of our skype conversations in MS Word and we have.... 2000 f**kin pages!!! seriously?! don't even know what to do about it ;D

we also have dirty conversations so we need to censor it a lot too :-[ does anyone else have this annoying problem? seems like it will take an eternity to finish that

I didn't send any conversations to them, only record of our calls. AND I went through and deleted all of the missed calls/calls that lasted only a couple seconds.

 

[CutiePie92]

I didn't send any conversations to them, only record of our calls. AND I went through and deleted all of the missed calls/calls that lasted only a couple seconds.

just a record of the calls? i think it depends where you're coming from too - i'm from Eastern Europe - i guess they demand a lot of proof. also, our relationship is pretty "young" (we know eachother since december 2012) so i guess we need to submit more. no children no nothing. everything went pretty fast (we married after 1 year and 3 months) so i'm a bit paranoid about it . we'll erase as much as we can.

how did you get just a record of the skype calls? (without the skype chat)

 

[withhardshipcomesease]

heya all! we just pasted all of our skype conversations in MS Word and we have.... 2000 f**kin pages!!! seriously?! don't even know what to do about it ;D

we also have dirty conversations so we need to censor it a lot too :-[ does anyone else have this annoying problem? seems like it will take an eternity to finish that

We have well over 5000 pages of Skype conversation, I'm planning just to give a sample of it, maybe two or three conversations per month. I'm not censoring anything. since the VO will be thorough, so will I XD

 

[agarand8]

just a record of the calls? i think it depends where you're coming from too - i'm from Eastern Europe - i guess they demand a lot of proof. also, our relationship is pretty "young" (we know eachother since december 2012) so i guess we need to submit more. no children no nothing. everything went pretty fast (we married after 1 year and 3 months) so i'm a bit paranoid about it . we'll erase as much as we can.

how did you get just a record of the skype calls? (without the skype chat)

I dont think you can. I use an iPad so I took screenshots and then printed them off. But if you had conversations inbetween calls then you'd just have to take everything.

 

[Ellasg]

If you think 2,000 pages is too much (I do ), you can just print a few for each month!

 

[agarand8]

If you think 2,000 pages is too much (I do ), you can just print a few for each month!

Agreed. I've heard of people sending hundreds of pictures and stuff, but I was advised on this forum that it's just unnecessary. With your pictures you are telling a story and each picture should contribute. For example after 5 or 6 wedding pictures the person looking through is thinking "ok I have sufficient proof that there was a wedding" so if you include 100 wedding pictures it's not really helping to tell your story, it's just excessive. I understand people are scared and are trying to avoid an interview and stuff but it's just something to think about. A few pictures from each major event is enough. They need to see that the events that you've talked about in your app actually happened, and they need to see the passage of time through your photos...so if you have pictures during different seasons or holidays this will help as well.

I think this goes just as well for proof of communication. If you can already proove that you actually talk to each other every few days either by phone or by video calling then I think all of the chat logs are just to much. Unless of course you are ONLY communicating via chat, then I suppose you have no other choice. To me....it's a huge violation of your privacy for them to be able to see exactly what you say to each other. All you have to prove is that you have a legitimate loving relationship. So if it was me, I would go through those skype chat logs and find particularly sentimental conversations, or conversations in which you talk about future plans and things like that. Look for conversations that can really help to prove your relationship and only give them those ones.

 

[lleahdoll]

heya all! we just pasted all of our skype conversations in MS Word and we have.... 2000 f**kin pages!!! seriously?! don't even know what to do about it ;D

we also have dirty conversations so we need to censor it a lot too :-[ does anyone else have this annoying problem? seems like it will take an eternity to finish that

Hi!
Yeah, wow! I'm guessing we'll have a ton as well. We did facebook chat and video chatted from there. So I have to go through over 6 months of chatting (after 6 months of dating I started coming here for 6 month intervals).
And we are DEFINITELY (and by we, I mean me cause I'm doing all the work) not including our dirty conversations. hahah Glad I'm not alone in that!! XD
I'm mostly including snippets. Like the others said. To show we had an ongoing relationship and then showing conversation where we'd talk about the future or how much we love each other, how much we miss each other, etc. Also for the beginning of the conversation I'm showing us getting to know each other, like when we asked about each other's families and things like "how many siblings do you have", etc etc. We talked about our morals and things that are important to us too.

just a record of the calls? i think it depends where you're coming from too - i'm from Eastern Europe - i guess they demand a lot of proof. also, our relationship is pretty "young" (we know eachother since december 2012) so i guess we need to submit more. no children no nothing. everything went pretty fast (we married after 1 year and 3 months) so i'm a bit paranoid about it . we'll erase as much as we can.

how did you get just a record of the skype calls? (without the skype chat)

Yeah, our relationship is young as well. As you can see by my little thing in my signature. We started talking July 2012, became bf/gf August 2012, got engaged June 2013, married August 2013. So it was all really fast but it only seems that way because most people wait a year to get married after being engaged. For us, and I'm sure it's the same for a lot here... it's difficult to plan a wedding being so far away and all your family is in different locations. We are also young (22/23) so we can't afford a wedding right now. And my family can't afford to fly to Canada or somewhere else to meet up with everyone for a wedding.
Anyways, I'm rambling hahah

Agreed. I've heard of people sending hundreds of pictures and stuff, but I was advised on this forum that it's just unnecessary. With your pictures you are telling a story and each picture should contribute. For example after 5 or 6 wedding pictures the person looking through is thinking "ok I have sufficient proof that there was a wedding" so if you include 100 wedding pictures it's not really helping to tell your story, it's just excessive. I understand people are scared and are trying to avoid an interview and stuff but it's just something to think about. A few pictures from each major event is enough. They need to see that the events that you've talked about in your app actually happened, and they need to see the passage of time through your photos...so if you have pictures during different seasons or holidays this will help as well.

I think this goes just as well for proof of communication. If you can already proove that you actually talk to each other every few days either by phone or by video calling then I think all of the chat logs are just to much. Unless of course you are ONLY communicating via chat, then I suppose you have no other choice. To me....it's a huge violation of your privacy for them to be able to see exactly what you say to each other. All you have to prove is that you have a legitimate loving relationship. So if it was me, I would go through those skype chat logs and find particularly sentimental conversations, or conversations in which you talk about future plans and things like that. Look for conversations that can really help to prove your relationship and only give them those ones.

Yeah, I've read it's quality over quantity really. They'd rather have a few photos of you being lovey dovey than 20 photos of you being stiff and posed in a photo next to each other. Is that accurate?

 

[zmahe]

I was concerned about the naughty stuff in the conversation records too. I'm actually thinking I might leave a small bit of it in, (not everything obviously) since I think it would be abnormal for spouses in a long distance relationship not to have those kinds of conversations.

My wife and I also first started talking to each other in December 2012, got engaged in June 2013, and married in February 2014. I think a year or so is a bit on the short side from beginning of relationship to marriage, but I don't think it would raise CIC suspicions as much as folks getting married on their first meeting etc. Honestly, I probably wouldn't have gotten married so quick if I'd been dating a Canadian chick, but since I already knew she was the one I went ahead and proposed because going months at a time without being together really sucks.

I have a general question about the forms. The ones that have the "validate" option seem pretty easy to fill out on the computer, but the others are a huge pain, as it's almost impossible to fit things into the boxes provided. Do you guys think it's cool if we just print those ones blank and fill them in by hand?

 

[zmahe]

Also, I can't for the life of me figure out how to set up a pic and a little information thing under my profile name to show up on my post like some of you guys have... How do you do that? ???

 

[agarand8]

Also, I can't for the life of me figure out how to set up a pic and a little information thing under my profile name to show up on my post like some of you guys have... How do you do that? ???

You go profile and then forum information or something.


And yes you can fill out the other forms by hand. No big deal.