[FreddoBee]

I am in Australia waiting for my Filipino partner to get a birth certificate annotation completed, which is taking so much longer than we thought and is delaying her application for a Visitor Visa.

I left the Philippines in February and have settled back in Australia patiently waiting for our reunion but starting to get a bit impatient!

It seems that by the time she arrives here we will be very close to completing 3 years of our relationship which will probably occur while she is here for a 3 months visit.

Can anyone please advise when the start of a de facto relationship is determined to be? Is it when a couple first starts living together or when they first made their committment to each other?

We made our committment to each other and made our decision to live together on December 7th 2015 and moved in together on January 7th 2016.

Many thanks in advance for an answer.

 

[CCMS]

The date is whenever you decide that the de-facto relationship began. Obviously you need to be able to substantiate that with relevant evidence.

With a married relationship it is easy, as you can just use engagement and wedding dates as formal milestones.

With de-facto it is much harder and different for everyone, especially when living in different countries.

As a general guide, you could take the date when you formalised your relationship in some way, for example by moving in together and setting up some sort of household. As evidence there could be joined leases, utility bills, combined financial commitments etc.

If possible, it may be a good idea to look into registering the relationship as well.

 

[FreddoBee]

The date is whenever you decide that the de-facto relationship began. Obviously you need to be able to substantiate that with relevant evidence.

With a married relationship it is easy, as you can just use engagement and wedding dates as formal milestones.

With de-facto it is much harder and different for everyone, especially when living in different countries.

As a general guide, you could take the date when you formalised your relationship in some way, for example by moving in together and setting up some sort of household. As evidence there could be joined leases, utility bills, combined financial commitments etc.

If possible, it may be a good idea to look into registering the relationship as well.

Many thanks. We decided on a date when we decided to commit but a bit hard to prove it as it was verbal although my partner and I and her 3 kids did go for a short vacation toegther at that time, for which we have proof; bookings and photos. Probably one month later when we started living together is easier to prove although at that time we had no thoughts or intentions of one day trying to get a Partner Visa for Australia so much evidence was just not kept.

I realised that from the date of committment I started sending suppport payments to her through Western Union, for which I have all records, so that could be useful evidence.