Advise about de-facto

[LewisLad]

Hi,

 

Me and my aussie girlfriend have been together for 9 months, my visa is up in 3 months time (it will just be 12 months be the time my visa expires). We've only lived together for the last 6 months BUT in Victoria I believe the 12 month cohabitation rule is waivered if you can register your relationship. If so, what other evidence will we need.

 

Thanks,

LewisLad

[lebourvellec]

http://www.immi.gov.au/allforms/booklets/1127.pdf

 

See pages 39-41

[LewisLad]

Can you pick and choose what you give them? For example, we dont have a shared bank account but if we eat out i will pay as she earns very little. Things like that arent really hard evidence. We are a genuine couple and i understand that they are trying to deter "fakes" but some of the evidence is tricky for even genuine couples.

[nycplanner]

My partner and I tried registering our relationship in Victoria but they wouldn't permit it as neither of us had lived in the state for more than 12 months. Just FYI.

 

As for de facto evidence, generally speaking the more the better. Some things that would work include:

 

- mail to each of you sent to the same address (not necessarily with both your names on one envelope)

- wedding invitations to the both of you

- shared travel itineraries (train/bus/plane tickets, hotel reservations)

- photos of the two of you, even if it includes other people

- payslips/tax forms in each of your names with address info

 

Try to include at least one piece of evidence for each quarter.

[LewisLad]

Yeah we qualify for the 12 months in Victoria in 1 months time (I'll apply then)

[Guest GeorgeD]

Any evidence which puts you both at the same address is useful. What utility bills do you have? If she is a student, does her Uni/College write to her at this address. Do either of you have a Super, where do they write to? If you have a car, get both names on the insurance as named drivers, etc. Any letters from Medicare? Private Health Insurance? Pet Registration with the local Council? Anything from the ATO?? You just need 'official' documentation putting you together at the same address. With the best will in the world, photos can be staged and you could write wedding invites and birthday cards yourself, so they really don't go for much. The grater the number and the more varied the sources of this evidence, the more prof you have of a genuine relationship. Anything DIAC list in the booklet is just a suggestion. You might not have any of it, so get your thinking cap on and see what you CAN dig up. I was living in the UK and my wife was on Oz, so I showed a printout from my wife's online banking thay had the last 20 IP addresses on it...it showed that I was logging in from the UK while she was n Oz...I explained this showed evidence of shared finances as we were in different countries so had no joint account, and both earned good money so we didn't really need to send money backward and forwards, but we both had access to the money. Don't know if they took any of this into account, but it didn't do my application any harm!

 

If you have life insurance, are you named as beneficiaries of each others? Do you have wills? If you don't then get them done...you are basically saying you are as committed as a married couple, and that's what couples do...think about how they provide for each other if the worst happens. It may be free to do in some states...in QLD the government's Public Trustee will do wills free of charge, don't know about VIC.

 

All of this evidence can be recent...you don't have a time machine so can't go back and make it up. The visa process has made you realise you didn't have it in place and you have put it in place now.

 

Do you have separate bank accounts? Are they registered at the same address? If you don't have any of this evidence at your current address and it's still going to an old one...get it changed now. You have a month or two to get a little bit of a paper trail of evidence sorted, so get cracking!