Common law eligibility - Urgent help

[Sriram03]

Hello everyone,

I'm on a pgwp and its about to expire on Feb 27,2022, which is like 4 days away. I have been living with my girlfriend for the past 1 year (9 months with proof as lease agreement and 3 months without any proof)I have a lease agreement starting May 1,2021 to April 30, 2022 as a proof. Before that I lived with my girlfriend in her place for 3 months, for which I do not have any proof.
Right now she is out of country on a trip to her hometown and she will be back by end of April.
Can I submit an application with Letter of explanation stating the situation?
Has anyone been on a similar boat? What are the chances of positive approval?

Please help. Thanks in advance.

 

[scylla]

Hello everyone,

I'm on a pgwp and its about to expire on Feb 27,2022, which is like 4 days away. I have been living with my girlfriend for the past 1 year (9 months with proof as lease agreement and 3 months without any proof)I have a lease agreement starting May 1,2021 to April 30, 2022 as a proof. Before that I lived with my girlfriend in her place for 3 months, for which I do not have any proof.
Right now she is out of country on a trip to her hometown and she will be back by end of April.
Can I submit an application with Letter of explanation stating the situation?
Has anyone been on a similar boat? What are the chances of positive approval?

Please help. Thanks in advance.

Unfortunately you won't be able to claim common law status. Once she returns in April, you will need to restart the 1 year of continuous cohabitation calculation from scratch. You'll qualify as common law in April 2023 (next year).

To be classified as common law, you must live together for 1 year continuously (i.e. without breaks). IRCC will generally accept a break in cohabitation for up to 3 weeks. However you are going to be separated for at least 2 months based on the above. This is too long. IRCC is going to classify this as a break in continuous cohabitation as of the date she left Canada. So this means you don't have a year of continuously living together. Again, you'll need to restart the 1 year calculation once she returns in April.

There's really no chance of positive approval. You don't meet the continuous cohabitation requirement.

Sorry - I know this isn't what you wanted to hear.

 

[scylla]

Hello everyone,

I'm on a pgwp and its about to expire on Feb 27,2022, which is like 4 days away. I have been living with my girlfriend for the past 1 year (9 months with proof as lease agreement and 3 months without any proof)I have a lease agreement starting May 1,2021 to April 30, 2022 as a proof. Before that I lived with my girlfriend in her place for 3 months, for which I do not have any proof.
Right now she is out of country on a trip to her hometown and she will be back by end of April.
Can I submit an application with Letter of explanation stating the situation?
Has anyone been on a similar boat? What are the chances of positive approval?

Please help. Thanks in advance.

Sorry - I may have misunderstood your dates..

When exactly did she leave Canada?

Also, you definitely need proof of cohabitation for the first 3 months. You won't be approved without this. Do you really have nothing for the first three months?

 

[Sriram03]

Sorry - I may have misunderstood your dates..

When exactly did she leave Canada?

Also, you definitely need proof of cohabitation for the first 3 months. You won't be approved without this. Do you really have nothing for the first three months?

Thank you scylla, I have been living with her since Feb 2021, and its just that I do not have sufficient proof to prove the first 3 months of cohabitation. Would that count?

 

[scylla]

Thank you scylla, I have been living with her since Feb 2021, and its just that I do not have sufficient proof to prove the first 3 months of cohabitation. Would that count?

You need proof for the entire period of cohabitation. It's especially important to prove when you started living together. It's going to be critical that you have evidence to support the first three months.
- Did you switch the address on any bank accounts or credit cards in Feb 2021 to show the joint address?
- What about any school or work documents that show the new address as of Feb 2021?
- Is your girlfriend's landlord for the first three months willing to provide a letter stating that you lived together at her place for this period?
- Did you by any chance update the utilities to list both of your names in Feb last year?
- Did you and your girlfriend open any joint bank accounts that date back to Feb last year?

You need to come up with evidence for the three months (more than one piece of evidence). IRCC will not take your word for it. Evidence is mandatory for this to work out for you.

 

[nbbc]

...
To be classified as common law, you must live together for 1 year continuously (i.e. without breaks). IRCC will generally accept a break in cohabitation for up to 3 weeks. However you are going to be separated for at least 2 months based on the above. This is too long. IRCC is going to classify this as a break in continuous cohabitation as of the date she left Canada. So this means you don't have a year of continuously living together. Again, you'll need to restart the 1 year calculation once she returns in April.
...

I have a follow-up question about this: what if you have already been living together documented for 1 year, and thus common-law status has been established, but then you live apart for a few months?

Like, can you lose common-law status once you have lived together for 1 year? My intuition says no, but I just wanted to get confirmation

Some context: my partner and I have been living together for 16 months, and actually we have an application package already completed, but we decided that it might not be worth the ~$1300 application fee, given our current situation (both work remotely and don't know if we actually need/want to live in Canada for more than 6 months at a time), so we thought maybe we can just hang on to it and submit it if/when needed. But if we would need to start the clock from scratch after any 3-week period of not living together, we would just submit it now.

Thanks!

 

[DimT44]

Hello everyone,

I'm on a pgwp and its about to expire on Feb 27,2022, which is like 4 days away. I have been living with my girlfriend for the past 1 year (9 months with proof as lease agreement and 3 months without any proof)I have a lease agreement starting May 1,2021 to April 30, 2022 as a proof. Before that I lived with my girlfriend in her place for 3 months, for which I do not have any proof.
Right now she is out of country on a trip to her hometown and she will be back by end of April.
Can I submit an application with Letter of explanation stating the situation?
Has anyone been on a similar boat? What are the chances of positive approval?

Please help. Thanks in advance.

You have been living together since Feb 2021.
1- Did you travel away from each other in that time?
2- You mentioned your wife is currently away, when did she travel?

 

[scylla]

I have a follow-up question about this: what if you have already been living together documented for 1 year, and thus common-law status has been established, but then you live apart for a few months?

Like, can you lose common-law status once you have lived together for 1 year? My intuition says no, but I just wanted to get confirmation

Some context: my partner and I have been living together for 16 months, and actually we have an application package already completed, but we decided that it might not be worth the ~$1300 application fee, given our current situation (both work remotely and don't know if we actually need/want to live in Canada for more than 6 months at a time), so we thought maybe we can just hang on to it and submit it if/when needed. But if we would need to start the clock from scratch after any 3-week period of not living together, we would just submit it now.

Thanks!

No - you would not need to restart the clock. You will still be considered as common law since you basically already established that by living together for 16 momths. Having said that, you would most likely need to re-do the entire application package when you're ready to apply since the forms are updated fairly regularly.

 

[frange]

I have a follow-up question about this: what if you have already been living together documented for 1 year, and thus common-law status has been established, but then you live apart for a few months?

Like, can you lose common-law status once you have lived together for 1 year? My intuition says no, but I just wanted to get confirmation

Some context: my partner and I have been living together for 16 months, and actually we have an application package already completed, but we decided that it might not be worth the ~$1300 application fee, given our current situation (both work remotely and don't know if we actually need/want to live in Canada for more than 6 months at a time), so we thought maybe we can just hang on to it and submit it if/when needed. But if we would need to start the clock from scratch after any 3-week period of not living together, we would just submit it now.

Thanks!

Living apart because of work (remotely) or other professional activities do not automatically break the common law status as long as you still have ties together. Travel, vacation, leaving the country temporary do not break either common law status if your principal residence is in Canada and keep ties with your partner.