CAUTION: a bit of a rant here, a lengthy rant. There is a persistent tendency in this forum to make question 10 (the address history question) far more complicated than necessary. And at the risk of being oppressively redundant, this post will repeatedly emphasize that
the key is to be HONEST and use Common-Sense. You can do it. I know you can.
I have a question with regards to the address history of the citizneship application.
Is the address given at soft landing for PR dispatch saved for IRCC as a mailing address or a residential address?
The reason I am aaking is that I am planning on stating that my address in that time was the hotel I stayed but provide an explaination that I used a relatives address for IRCC correspondences
Is that the right move?
I am not an expert. NOT close.
But no particular expertise is necessary to understand what is required in answering question 10 in the application. Again, for whatever reason or reasons, there is a persistent tendency in this forum to make this far more complicated than necessary. It really is not all that complicated.
Hint 1: It is NOT a trick question. It is not some
gotcha-game trap.
Honesty and common-sense, in conjunction with being complete, are the key.
Address history is simply part of the overall picture illuminating where the applicant was
geographically located for the entire five year eligibility period, one part of a puzzle; other parts of the puzzle include the applicant's work/activity history and travel history for this period.
Question 10 simply asks for the applicant's address history, where they
resided/lived for the full five year eligibility period. This is NOT about where mail, paper or electronic, could be sent (if different from the address where the applicant was living); and it is not about the addresses the applicant may have used for purposes other than as the place where one was actually living.
Generally there should be ONLY ONE address listed for a particular period of time. Applicants should use their best personal judgment to HONESTLY give this information. Those with concerns this will be misleading or incomplete, sure, again using one's own best judgment, that can be addressed in supplemental information included with the application.
Hint 2: for one example, it is at least in part misleading to list an address derived from fudging the geographical address you may have given to banks or such, an address where you never actually established residence (own up that this was at best fudging; after all, no big deal, something many if not most of us have done, me too, and it is not a problem unless it is otherwise part of a scheme to engage in fraud). Listing such an address illuminates nothing about where a person was geographically located, no more than listing email addresses would.
Generally, with some exceptions (but not so many as discussions in this forum seem to suggest), there is no need to wrestle with this beyond
honestly reporting the address of the location where one actually lived, which is NOT necessarily where they slept every day, so mostly about the address of the location where one maintained their primary residential address so long as that is where they actually lived, generally, including sleeping there most of the time.
Again, honesty and common-sense, in conjunction with being complete, are the key. Absent significant transient or homeless periods of time (
significant periods of time during which the individual has terminated their residency from a prior address without establishing a residence in a new address), which can be identified as such and clarified in supplemental information (what many refer to as a Letter-of-Explanation),
you know the address of the location where you were living, even if you were traveling or otherwise temporarily away from that address, that is away from your usual place of residence (your
home, the place you maintain as a residence and where you actually live).
Yes, some applicants might have a bit of trouble clearly identifying what their address was for particular periods of time during which they were temporarily living away from their primary residential address, away from
home. But the extent to which this is an issue tends to be grossly exaggerated in forum discussions.
Hint 3, part A: if you traveled to Canada to make a soft landing, no intent to actually establish a physical residence here, and you were here for two or twenty days, and then returned
home (to where you were living before), the place you stayed while in Canada for that two or twenty days was not your address for that period of time.
Hint 3, Part B: use common-sense. Yeah, that's the key:
be HONEST and use Common-Sense. It is not about the precise number of days, but about whether one was living here rather than just visiting (for whatever purpose). Thus, if here in Canada attendant a soft landing for more than twenty days, whether to list the address here where you stayed
depends -- again, mostly use common-sense (temporary periods
away-from-home further addressed below).
Thus, NO, if attendant landing you gave CBSA an address in Canada so that your PR card would be mailed to that location, but you did not actually establish
YOUR residence at that address,
it would be misleading to list that as one of your addresses. Yeah, doing that attendant the landing was fudging. Generally best to not be fudging when you give CBSA or IRCC information. But this happens to be very common and there is no hint this causes problems; obviously, IRCC officials understand, they
get it.
The permutations of possible scenarios are far too expansive to aptly illustrate by example, especially since there are no well defined parameters. It is not as if IRCC expects the applicant to list the address for a temporary stay at a location based on a particular number of days/nights spent there. Rather, it
DEPENDS. Use Common-Sense. (Remember the presence calculation provides detailed information about time periods in and out of Canada). That said, yeah, the longer the stay at a particular location, the more likely the HONEST answer would include listing the address of that location.
The guide offers some general parameters. It says, for example, do NOT list hotels or resorts where you stayed while on vacation. It says to list the address where you were "
working or studying" (particularly if outside Canada). But again, use common-sense. Whether to list the address for a short stay to work out of town on a temporary assignment, or to attend a limited two-week class, for example, may be a personal judgment call. Ask yourself, would it be misleading,
in regards to disclosing where you were living, to not list that address? Or might it be confusing, perhaps even misleading, to include it? Again, remember this is not a trick question, no
gotcha-games-trap, and for periods of
travel outside Canada the relevant details will be provided in your physical presence calculation.
Let's be honest; let's be clear: There are more than a few who deliberately obfuscate (for whatever reason, whatever motive is involved), and one of the means employed is to obscure by excess. Another tactic employed is deliberate mischaracterization. The latter is amply illustrated in this forum by those who characterize periods they are living outside Canada as "
holidays," including more than a few who refer to "
traveling" outside Canada when actually they are talking about living outside Canada.
For those focused on being honest, in contrast, it really, really is not all that difficult to sort out periods of time traveling away from home versus living at a different address. You know where you were living, when. List accordingly.
The ALL-Addresses used Red Herring:
Applicants are asked to disclose their current residential address (where they live), their mailing address (if different from their residential address), and their email address. This is question 7 in the citizenship application. This is primarily about providing contact information, but one (and just one) must be consistent with the information provided in question 10: the applicant's residential address. In fact, row 1 in the address history (question 10) will auto-populate based on the residential address given in question 7, and if the applicant changes this in question 10, the application form will automatically change the contact information in question 7 accordingly . . . that is, as to the applicant's residential address.
Question 10 does not ask for mailing addresses or email addresses. Row 1 does not need to match the mailing or email addresses listed in question 7. It must match the residential address in question 7 (and again, the form will automatically make it match).
Thus, I disagree, in particular, with the view that question 10, asking the applicant to provide their address history, is asking for more than the addresses where one was residing/living. Contrary to the view of some that the applicant should "
list all addresses you have used," for example, definitely do not list email addresses in this part of the application. Same regarding mailing addresses.
