Ah alright, so should I not bother with the letter for financial support from parents at all? I'm not nor have ever been on welfare.
I am in a similar situation and I am submitting a letter from family AND a letter explaining my situation and how I intend to support ourselves with supporting documents.
DEFINITELY submit a letter written by you explaining your situation. In this letter make sure to explain how you support yourselves currently and how you intend to support yourselves while the application is processing and for the 3 years of being a sponsor if need be. Even though there is no income requirement, they still want to see that you are able to support yourself. This letter is also about giving them enough evidence that they believe YOU specifically as the sponsor are able to support the applicant and yourself should you need to. So a detailed explanation of how YOU would do that if you needed to and this does not include your husbands work/finances. Basically, they want to know that if your husband (applicant) had no funds/lost job/visa expired, how would YOU as the sponsor support him and yourself without asking for government financial help.
I am in a similar situation, unemployed, and here's what I put in my letter followed by some supporting documents:
- Detailed explanation of why i'm not employed i.e. just moved back to Canada, husband was sole money earner, pregnant
- Explained how I intend to provide support if need be which included: business plan, job search results, resume, bank statement of savings, and letter from family saying they are willing to support if needed.
- Listed the support given to the applicant by means of accommodation/personal items/food/utilities (they not only look at finances they want to know that the applicant has a basic standard of living such as food, shelter, etc)
- Stated that I bought him 6 months Health Insurance to cover him during the application
- Stated that I am not receiving any social benefit nor have I gone through bankruptsy or have any outstanding immigration loans. (Because I was unemployed I did not have an Notice of Assessment to submit which is the document they look for to prove you are not receiving any social benefit I also explained why this was not included)
Then.....
- I included a brief 1 page business plan of a business I am wanting to set up
- I included print outs of job searches for relevant jobs I could apply for
- Included a 1 page resume where it shows my education/work experience to prove I am employable
- Bank statements showing money in savings that can be used
- A letter from my Mom/Dad stating they are willing and able to provide support
In my letter from family it stated:
- Their full names, date of birth, citizenship, and address
- They declare that they are willing and able to support us financially and through accommodation/food/utilities if needed.
- Detailed what they do for a living, annual income, housing situation (if you are staying with them).
- Contact information
- Included 1 bank statement
Because there is no income requirement yet they want to see proof of being able to support the applicant, it's a very subjective and tricky part of our application! There's no right/wrong thing to do or guide on what to include. But I believe that explanation letters and letters of support are ALWAYS a good idea. It doesn't take very long to draft a letter, so why not include it. Furthermore, you may not want to submit all the supporting evidence like I did, but most of what I've decided to submit came from examples and ideas taken from other members of this forum in similar situations. I researched this forum extensively on this subject and in the end found these documents i.e. job search results, resume, letter from family to be most often submitted in our cases.
Best of luck
