Hello everyone.
I am opening this topic with the intention of understanding whether me and my girlfriend should go down the common-law road or find other ways for me to migrate to Canada.
I will describe our situation, trying to be as concise and accurate as possible.
I am an Italian national who is currently living in his home country, while my girlfriend is a Canadian citizen living in Canada. We have been dating for almost 7 years now, but haven't decided to marry yet. We cohabited (lived together) continuously for a total of almost two years (11 months in Canada, 9 months in Italy and another 3 months in Canada). After this long period of living together we went on a long-distance relationship that has been lasting for several years now. The reason why we separated is simple: I wanted to graduate from university back in Italy, while my girlfriend wanted to start working on her career in Canada. I eventually graduated and managed to save up a good amount of money in the process. Throughout our years of long-distance relationship we saw each other very often, we travelled to see each other, went on holidays in third countries and so on. When we saw each-other, we spent 2 or 3 months together at a time.
Now we decided to end this period of long-distance and reunite once for all. So we have started gathering the necessary documents for Common-Law.
But here are the problems: we don't have a lease, a rent, a shared phone-bill or any legal agreement that could prove and support our application. The only thing we have is a shared bank-account, which I opened back in the past, when I worked in Canada. The bank-account statements show the address where we lived at, it shows the occasional expenses, but nothing more.
The reason why we don't have a lease to show is very simple: when I lived in Canada I stayed at the house she rented, when she lived in Italy with me, we stayed at my family house (where I obviously don't pay a rent!)
We have, however, other proofs we would like to use to support our application, and we think that certain elements could actually be sufficient to prove the authenticity of our common-law relationship.
These proofs are:
1.Flight tickets spanning from 2013 to now, that prove that our relationship is genuine and has been long-lasting.
2.Flight tickets to other countries where we went on holiday.
3.An immense amount of pictures where one can easily see us at different stages and different age (I looked quite younger 7 years ago!)
4.Family and friends willing to write declarations stating the genuineness of our relationship.
5.The fact that we are two people in their younger years, who would have no reason to migrate to another country if it wasn't for the reason of being together.
Now, considering that we don't have any legal document - apart from our shared bank account - proving that we cohabited together, but we have a lot of "minor" proofs, do you think we should try and apply or is our documentation insufficient? Should we just get married?
I hope somebody has had the patience to read this and can provide some helpful advice.
Thank you a lot in advance.
I am opening this topic with the intention of understanding whether me and my girlfriend should go down the common-law road or find other ways for me to migrate to Canada.
I will describe our situation, trying to be as concise and accurate as possible.
I am an Italian national who is currently living in his home country, while my girlfriend is a Canadian citizen living in Canada. We have been dating for almost 7 years now, but haven't decided to marry yet. We cohabited (lived together) continuously for a total of almost two years (11 months in Canada, 9 months in Italy and another 3 months in Canada). After this long period of living together we went on a long-distance relationship that has been lasting for several years now. The reason why we separated is simple: I wanted to graduate from university back in Italy, while my girlfriend wanted to start working on her career in Canada. I eventually graduated and managed to save up a good amount of money in the process. Throughout our years of long-distance relationship we saw each other very often, we travelled to see each other, went on holidays in third countries and so on. When we saw each-other, we spent 2 or 3 months together at a time.
Now we decided to end this period of long-distance and reunite once for all. So we have started gathering the necessary documents for Common-Law.
But here are the problems: we don't have a lease, a rent, a shared phone-bill or any legal agreement that could prove and support our application. The only thing we have is a shared bank-account, which I opened back in the past, when I worked in Canada. The bank-account statements show the address where we lived at, it shows the occasional expenses, but nothing more.
The reason why we don't have a lease to show is very simple: when I lived in Canada I stayed at the house she rented, when she lived in Italy with me, we stayed at my family house (where I obviously don't pay a rent!)
We have, however, other proofs we would like to use to support our application, and we think that certain elements could actually be sufficient to prove the authenticity of our common-law relationship.
These proofs are:
1.Flight tickets spanning from 2013 to now, that prove that our relationship is genuine and has been long-lasting.
2.Flight tickets to other countries where we went on holiday.
3.An immense amount of pictures where one can easily see us at different stages and different age (I looked quite younger 7 years ago!)
4.Family and friends willing to write declarations stating the genuineness of our relationship.
5.The fact that we are two people in their younger years, who would have no reason to migrate to another country if it wasn't for the reason of being together.
Now, considering that we don't have any legal document - apart from our shared bank account - proving that we cohabited together, but we have a lot of "minor" proofs, do you think we should try and apply or is our documentation insufficient? Should we just get married?
I hope somebody has had the patience to read this and can provide some helpful advice.
Thank you a lot in advance.
