US to Canada - spouse is Canadian and US citizen

[JenniferinFL]

Hi Jennifer! I would be happy to help with any questions you have. I am US citizen and hubs Canadian. We moved from Denver this year to Halifax, NS. Mainly for cost of living and traffic! He is from London, ON and moved to CO on a Green Card as well when we got married. We have 1 child who received PR (my hubs adopted him after I terminated parental rights) and we have a dual (5 yr old). You can do the application without the proof of dual for child, but definitely send in to receive proof of citizenship right away. Once you submit it, and I think you pay for it online, you receive a tracking number of some soft. We just included a note in the application that stated it was in process and what that number was so they could track it if they wanted to.

Vehicles: You cannot bring a vehicle if it is financed. I learned that no manufacture will write a letter giving permission for this. Since my hubs only owned $7k left on his, we paid his off after closing on our home and I took my 2018 Ford Escape back to the dealer and they bought it back from me. When I got here, I bought a new car.

Make sure you read and follow the application step by step. One missing part and they will return it, but if everything is there, ours took about 4 months total to process.

I know you mentioned your husband has been in the US for a while, but do you know if he maintained his credit or credit cards while he was away? This turned out to be a life saver for us when we got here.

He hasn't maintained any credit in Canada unfortunately- would have been a good idea, but we never thought we would move back. It looks like he still has an old, closed credit card reporting and a paid off car loan reporting. He moved to the US in 2007 and has been just using credit in the US.

Both of our cars are really new, but, we were thinking of just paying them off depending on what we get for our house here in Florida and hopefully qualifying for a mortgage there. Spouse might just go back before me and start working there so he can go ahead and build credit. BUT, looks like we're going to have to wait a bit longer to apply. I'm going to get kids application for citizenship filled out, but, looks like if I don't get my CPA here I won't be able to get it without doing over a big chunk of my schooling.

 

[keesio]

Canada is not really super anti-American. Have never heard stories like yours. Perhaps because the Sault has more issues as a border town. You may have lived there during periods of specific economic decline where there was more anti-American sentiment.

Surprised to hear about Brantford being anti-American. I always felt that the smaller Canadian towns would be less anti-American than the major urban centres (which tend to be more left leaning and more anti-USA). Quebec is a different ball of wax altogether

In any case, the anti-American-ism I dealt with had more to do with snide comments/insults which I learned to tune out over the years. I live right downtown in Toronto and it was never really hostile like what you experienced in Brantford with the vandalism.