Question about common-law sponsorship

[smhj777]

Hello everyone, my girlfriend (on a work permit in Canada) and I (Canadian citizen) having been dating for 3 years and I would like to sponsor her via common-law. We haven't been living together during our time dating, so we will have to first fulfil the 12 month cohabitation requirement. I just have a few questions, but before I ask them, I'll provide a little background:

I am currently a student and my parents house is about 1 hour away from my university town, so I live in the university town about 8 months a year. My girlfriend graduated from the same university, so she is currently working in that same town. The issue is, I do not live in the same house for the full 12 months. I usually rotate between 2 houses in my university town every 4 months, and when I am off school, I live at home for the remaining 4 months.

1a. for common-law, do we have to be living in one address throughout those 12 months?

1b. If the answer to the above question is yes, I would think that the easiest option would be to change her address to my parents house and have us both move in there for the 12 months and just commute to school. Would my parents have to give us a "lease"? Or could we technically live there for free, but just show other methods of proof that we lived there for the 12 months?

1c. If we do live under our parents house, that would change taxes for the following year correct? Since now there will be an additional person living at my parents house?

2. After the 12 months, we will apply for common-law sponsorship. However if it takes a while, her work permit may expire while waiting for an answer. To prevent her from having to go back home, should we apply via inland and then have her apply for an open work permit while we wait for the answer, or is that not possible?

3. How difficult is this whole common-law process? We're debating on getting a lawyer to help with the process but it is pretty expensive. Is it worth it to hire one for common-law sponsorship, especially in a "difficult" case like mine? I feel like most of the process is pretty straightforward as long as we follow the guides, it's just the living situation that I am finding difficult to figure out in terms of taxes/proof etc., which makes us lean to wanting a lawyer.

Thank you!!

 

[monkeys89]

Hello everyone, my girlfriend (on a work permit in Canada) and I (Canadian citizen) having been dating for 3 years and I would like to sponsor her via common-law. We haven't been living together during our time dating, so we will have to first fulfil the 12 month cohabitation requirement. I just have a few questions, but before I ask them, I'll provide a little background:

I am currently a student and my parents house is about 1 hour away from my university town, so I live in the university town about 8 months a year. My girlfriend graduated from the same university, so she is currently working in that same town. The issue is, I do not live in the same house for the full 12 months. I usually rotate between 2 houses in my university town every 4 months, and when I am off school, I live at home for the remaining 4 months.

1a. for common-law, do we have to be living in one address throughout those 12 months?

1b. If the answer to the above question is yes, I would think that the easiest option would be to change her address to my parents house and have us both move in there for the 12 months and just commute to school. Would my parents have to give us a "lease"? Or could we technically live there for free, but just show other methods of proof that we lived there for the 12 months?

1c. If we do live under our parents house, that would change taxes for the following year correct? Since now there will be an additional person living at my parents house?

2. After the 12 months, we will apply for common-law sponsorship. However if it takes a while, her work permit may expire while waiting for an answer. To prevent her from having to go back home, should we apply via inland and then have her apply for an open work permit while we wait for the answer, or is that not possible?

3. How difficult is this whole common-law process? We're debating on getting a lawyer to help with the process but it is pretty expensive. Is it worth it to hire one for common-law sponsorship, especially in a "difficult" case like mine? I feel like most of the process is pretty straightforward as long as we follow the guides, it's just the living situation that I am finding difficult to figure out in terms of taxes/proof etc., which makes us lean to wanting a lawyer.

Thank you!!

1a. No, you don't have to cohabitate at a single address continuously for 12 months. A requirement as such would be a little hard to manage given leases and the such.

1b. You need proof, even for the parts of the year that you live at home. A lease, a letter acknowledging it, etc.

1c. Taxes are not charged based on people at an address. Income taxes are based on personal income and exemptions and credits.

2. You can apply for an inland application after the 12 months and include an application for OWP at the same time. The OWP will take 3-4 months. She may lose her right to work in between the expiry of her work permit and the issuance of her OWP.

3. You don't necessarily need to hire a lawyer. I see no reason why your case is more "difficult" than any others. If you feel more comfortable with a lawyer, then you will want to hire one.

 

[Jazzercise]

Hello everyone, my girlfriend (on a work permit in Canada) and I (Canadian citizen) having been dating for 3 years and I would like to sponsor her via common-law. We haven't been living together during our time dating, so we will have to first fulfil the 12 month cohabitation requirement. I just have a few questions, but before I ask them, I'll provide a little background:

I am currently a student and my parents house is about 1 hour away from my university town, so I live in the university town about 8 months a year. My girlfriend graduated from the same university, so she is currently working in that same town. The issue is, I do not live in the same house for the full 12 months. I usually rotate between 2 houses in my university town every 4 months, and when I am off school, I live at home for the remaining 4 months.

1a. for common-law, do we have to be living in one address throughout those 12 months?

1b. If the answer to the above question is yes, I would think that the easiest option would be to change her address to my parents house and have us both move in there for the 12 months and just commute to school. Would my parents have to give us a "lease"? Or could we technically live there for free, but just show other methods of proof that we lived there for the 12 months?

1c. If we do live under our parents house, that would change taxes for the following year correct? Since now there will be an additional person living at my parents house?

2. After the 12 months, we will apply for common-law sponsorship. However if it takes a while, her work permit may expire while waiting for an answer. To prevent her from having to go back home, should we apply via inland and then have her apply for an open work permit while we wait for the answer, or is that not possible?

3. How difficult is this whole common-law process? We're debating on getting a lawyer to help with the process but it is pretty expensive. Is it worth it to hire one for common-law sponsorship, especially in a "difficult" case like mine? I feel like most of the process is pretty straightforward as long as we follow the guides, it's just the living situation that I am finding difficult to figure out in terms of taxes/proof etc., which makes us lean to wanting a lawyer.

Thank you!!

Pretty sure people with far more experience with the common-law stuff can chime in here, but I'll go ahead and throw in my thoughts to start this off...

1a. No. it's just living together for a year, period.

1b. What exactly is the plan for the upcoming year? I'm not seeing why you two wouldn't live together for the full 12 months in the town where the university is located. (Related: Why haven't you two lived together in the past? You probably have legit reasons, I'm more curious than anything.) If she works in the university town for the full year, and you're living there 75% of the year anyway... From the information given, it would make sense to live there rather than full on relocate an hour away. If, however, you do plan on moving in with your parents, they could draft a lease and have you two pay rent/utilities. If you live there for free, a letter of explanation by you two -- in addition to a letter of support from your parents -- might suffice. Beyond that, make sure you document some financial co-dependence.

1c. I'm not sure I follow.

2. I can't offer any advice with much confidence, so I'll leave it alone. There are many people here who have transitioned from one work permit to another/PR application, so I'll let them tackle this part.

3. Obviously I know very little of your case, but from what you've presented, I'm not sure it sounds particularly "difficult." It sounds as though it's just a matter of documenting that the relationship is genuine and not one out of convenience. Figure out where you two will live the next year, and start to put things under one roof - bills, licenses, etc.

 

[smhj777]

1b. What exactly is the plan for the upcoming year? I'm not seeing why you two wouldn't live together for the full 12 months in the town where the university is located. (Related: Why haven't you two lived together in the past? You probably have legit reasons, I'm more curious than anything.) If she works in the university town for the full year, and you're living there 75% of the year anyway... From the information given, it would make sense to live there rather than full on relocate an hour away. If, however, you do plan on moving in with your parents, they could draft a lease and have you two pay rent/utilities. If you live there for free, a letter of explanation by you two -- in addition to a letter of support from your parents -- might suffice. Beyond that, make sure you document some financial co-dependence.

Thank you very much for the quick response, I really appreciate it! I think the plan is to ultimately sit down and discuss the pros and cons of living away and at home with both her and my parents. Living at my parents for the full 12 months would be nice as it'll be easier to gather proof of having one location, but commuting is also a pain.

The reason why we didn't live together in the past was because we both had very long leases for the houses we stayed in before we met, and she had visited her home country to see her family throughout those 3 years during the summer breaks, so we weren't technically together 100% of the time. She did stay over the majority of the time at my place when she was in Canada, but I doubt there'd be enough evidence to prove that as we never really have any hard proof of that.

1a. No, you don't have to cohabitate at a single address continuously for 12 months. A requirement as such would be a little hard to manage given leases and the such.

1b. You need proof, even for the parts of the year that you live at home. A lease, a letter acknowledging it, etc.

1c. Taxes are not charged based on people at an address. Income taxes are based on personal income and exemptions and credits.

2. You can apply for an inland application after the 12 months and include an application for OWP at the same time. The OWP will take 3-4 months. She may lose her right to work in between the expiry of her work permit and the issuance of her OWP.

3. You don't necessarily need to hire a lawyer. I see no reason why your case is more "difficult" than any others. If you feel more comfortable with a lawyer, then you will want to hire one.

Thank you for the quick reply! I appreciate it. Just two quick follow-up questions:

1. If her PGWP were to expire while we were waiting for the OWP, is she still allowed to be in Canada?

2. If we do plan to live at my parents house for the 12 months for free, would changing our addresses on government cards, changing shipping/billing addresses and maybe having a notarized letter from my parents suffice, or would a lease ultimately be the best piece of proof? Thanks again!

 

[monkeys89]

Thank you for the quick reply! I appreciate it. Just two quick follow-up questions:

1. If her PGWP were to expire while we were waiting for the OWP, is she still allowed to be in Canada?

2. If we do plan to live at my parents house for the 12 months for free, would changing our addresses on government cards, changing shipping/billing addresses and maybe having a notarized letter from my parents suffice, or would a lease ultimately be the best piece of proof? Thanks again!

1. She will have implied status from her OWP application. There are different interpretations as to what that means regarding working permission, but it does mean that you do not need to leave Canada unless the OWP is rejected and you're told to leave.

2. Those will all help. A lease is still a good idea. Remember you're also going to need to prove the validity of the relationship - so collect photos of you two together, etc.

 

[Jazzercise]

Thank you very much for the quick response, I really appreciate it! I think the plan is to ultimately sit down and discuss the pros and cons of living away and at home with both her and my parents. Living at my parents for the full 12 months would be nice as it'll be easier to gather proof of having one location, but commuting is also a pain.

The reason why we didn't live together in the past was because we both had very long leases for the houses we stayed in before we met, and she had visited her home country to see her family throughout those 3 years during the summer breaks, so we weren't technically together 100% of the time. She did stay over the majority of the time at my place when she was in Canada, but I doubt there'd be enough evidence to prove that as we never really have any hard proof of that.

No problem! So even though you didn't live together, you can obviously still use evidence from those years to prove you've been in a genuine relationship all this time. Photos, text messages, emails, social media, whatever. Use those things on top of whatever it is you gather to prove common-law for the upcoming year. Again, regardless of where you choose to live, make sure you start to put things under one roof (i.e. all the stuff you mentioned in another post). Oh, and a head's up: the letter of support from your parents won't need to be notarized, I believe. The exception might be if you need to provide a translation. Check on this though to be safe.

Best of luck in the upcoming year and with the application when the time comes!