Common Law while Living Abroad!

[amanda1313]

Hello!

New to this forum. I having been reading through the different threads but have yet to find someone with a similar situation.


January 2019 I moved abroad to live with my boyfriend in his country! I am a Canadian born citizen. We have been renting an apartment together now for a little over a year. We have been in a relationship for 1 1/2 years. I am technically there as a tourist because I can not work (no working visa). I am self employed and make my income in Toronto, Canada. I have taken trips back to Canada to visit family and friends but only for a duration of 2-3 weeks. He applied for two visitor visas to Canada and was rejected.

This is our first common law relationship for both of us and we both have no children.

My questions are:

~ Do we need to be living as common law "in Canada" to apply for common law sponsorship?

~ Will I need more proof?
This is what I can provide: Rental agreement with both our names, letter from landlord, letters from family & friends, all my airline tickets showing my travel there, my sister has come to visit us three times (show her flight bookings?), lots of photos. **We cant provide utility bills because we paid our landlord cash for electricity (electricity bill in my landlord's name), never had joint bank accounts (never had a reason to open one since my income is deposited in my Canadian account).

~ My income is not as much as I usually earn because I was living abroad. Will this effect our application? How much income do you need to show minimum?

Thank you!

 

[simoneleah]

1. No, you don't need to be living in Canada together to be common law. You should note that they will likely require lots of evidence showing you plan to move BACK to Canada as soon as his PR is approved (searching for a place to live, etc. etc. Since you're self-employed job searches wouldn't be relevant).
2. Considering you mention that you came back to Canada to visit, I would tread carefully. I have heard of people unfortunately being denied common law because they have been apart for certain periods. I suppose it depends on how many trips you have taken and how much time it adds up to in total. One trip for 2-3 weeks is probably fine, but anything more than a month may mean you're not common law in the eyes of Canada. Rental agreements and bills are great, but since you're proving that you're living together for a entire year, you'll need a lot of evidence for a full 12-months. IE, 12 months worth of: Joint or separate bank account statements, Credit Card statements, utility bills, insurance (tenant insurance, life insurance), rental agreement, phone bills, etc.
3. There's no income requirement to sponsor a spouse. You'll have to provide your NOA and explain that you're self employed but you won't face any issues assuming you've provided everything they've asked for.

Common law can be more difficult since they don't just require that you live together, but they require evidence of exactly 12 months. Definitely review your evidence and make sure it provides a solid picture of 12 months of cohabitation in a marriage-like relationship. Having joint bills, accounts, shared funds etc. show a genuine relationship more than a rental agreement, although the rental agreement is obviously strong proof that you've been cohabitating.

Good luck!

 

[amanda1313]

I still have phone bills, credit card bills, car lease, my work contract in Canada so I'm sure that is proof that I'll be returning. I am only living abroad to be with my boyfriend because my boyfriend is from a country that requires a visa to Canada.

We do not having anything joint together only the rental agreement. Can purchases for the apartment work has evidence?

 

[simoneleah]

You may want to review the checklist. You have to at least fulfil the minimum requirements, although they also allow for submitting a letter of explanation.

From what you've said, for the question: Are you and your spouse currently living together? you currently fulfill:
1. Rental agreement
2. Potentially "other documents issued to you or your sponsor showing the same address..." (min. 1 document for each person)

Sounds like you will not have answered "Yes" to all 4 of the questions (ie, you don't have kids) so you then need
- 20 photographs
- 2 of 4 options for proving your relationship of which you have...
- Evidence of financial support/shared expenses (if you've been transfering money, making purchases sent to the home from your account, sending money between each other, etc. This one I think you can be a little creative, I used my Paypal account which had us transferring money/buying things from our joint account)
- Proof your relationship is recognized by friends/family

Your main hurdle will probably be proving that you have been cohabitating for a year. A rental agreement is really strong but it isn't everything. From what I've read, lots of people have encountered issues with common law sponsorships where their evidence was weak and the visa officier didn't think they'd been cohabitating in a marriage-like relationship.

From what I've seen (again, I'm just an observer! I don't know anyone personally so please take anything I say with a grain of salt, haha ) IRCC will request if they need additional documents/evidence. If you fulfil the checklist, your application won't be returned as incomplete. But with a common law relationship, they want to know that this is a real, lasting relationship that is acting as a marriage in all but the officially signed papers. To me, that's something strangers can't really determine for you but IRCC sure will try, so be prepared to provide them with more evidence than you probably feel is necessary.

 

[G&G]

Hi! I'm in a similar situation. I'm a Canadian citizen sponsoring my Australian common law partner and we live abroad.

We've been together over 2 years now (met traveling) and have been living abroad in 2 different countries for the past 15 months following my partner's work. We didn't have utility bills either (my partner's employer pays for housing/utilities/flights/vehicle/etc) so it's good that you have a rental agreement! We also didn't have a joint account in our first country abroad (there was only one ATM where we lived and cash was king so I didn't need bank access). I was listed as a dependent on his employment contracts, however I was in the country on a tourist visa. For all of this, we wrote explanation letters detailing the circumstances and why we lacked certain evidence, which I'd encourage you to do.

As for the income- I don't think there's a minimum since you don't have dependents. I haven't been working due to visa restrictions in the countries we've been living so I wrote a letter stating that I was willing to support my partner for the length of undertaking, plans to get work in Canada etc and included evidence of my qualifications and of our joint savings since I don't have my own income at the moment.

 

[chocococo]

Hey! My spouse and I became common-law abroad before moving here and applying inland. We had a rental agreement for a place that was furnished, had insurances included and utilities--therefore we had no common bills. So what we did was get our individual phone bills that had the same address, I provided my CRA tax stuff to show our address, he provided his school invoices to show our address. I also declared myself as in common-law with CRA, so I used that as a proof as well. We had letter from family members, one of which was an affidavit signed in front of a lawyer, our landlord wrote a character letter stating we had lived there for over a year. We would transfer money through PayPal, so used that as proof of financial support. I was teleworking for a Canadian company, but officially my office was in Canada, so I got my employer to write a letter stating that I was employed in Canada but currently working from home abroad. We also did a common-law agreement that was notorized. Also, we had each other as emergency contacts with our jobs.

I'ts been 2 years now since we built our file, so I'm a bit foggy on the details of what we provided... But I wanted to show you that you can prove cohabitation even if all you have with both your name on it is a rental agreement. You have to get creative, and you are allowed to provide more info for the CIC agent.

I recommend you start building your file asap and even once you submit it, continue accumulating proofs of cohabition and common-law relationship, just in case they request more proofs. Can your spouse add you to their insurance plan, for example? It's quick, relatively cheap, and it helps.