[NS85]

Hi, I’m an Australia citizen and my partner is Serbian, currently in Australia on a student visa. We’ve been together for a year and 2 months now, however we were in a long distance relationship for about 9 months. We met whilst she was holidaying in Australia and we spent about 1.5 months together and she then had to go back to Serbia to arrange for her student visa, move to Australia, etc. Whilst she was in Serbia, I visited her and we went travelling around Europe (though there are no flights in her name as we went on a 3 week road trip, but we do have hotel reservations, lots of photographs from that trip and Facebook posts). She moved to Australia in early May 2018 and We’ve been living together since then. While she is not on my current lease agreement, We have a joint savings account and her phone bill, personal bank account, etc have our address. There are no transactions on the joint account as that’s purely a savings account (we opened that just in case we have to do another student visa and need to show the funds required for study, stay, etc) and we just use our own accounts for our daily expenses. We want to apply for a spouse visa for her (her student visa expires in November this year). Even though we’ve been together for over a year (we have photos, emails, messages, my trip to Europe, letters from friends etc to prove our relationship), however since we were in a long distance relationship for part of that year, are we still eligible to apply for a spouse visa? I’ve spoken to a couple of migration agents and they say we are eligible, I’m a bit nervous about the fact that we haven’t lived together for 12 months and just want to be absolutely certain as the agents’ fees are $4000+ and not to mention $7000+ for the application.

Thanks for all your help!

 

[NS85]

Just to clarify, we are looking to apply for the 801/820 partner visa. And we reside in Melbourne! Thanks.

 

[CCMS]

Hi, I'm an Australia citizen and my partner is Serbian, currently in Australia on a student visa. We've been together for a year and 2 months now, however we were in a long distance relationship for about 9 months. We met whilst she was holidaying in Australia and we spent about 1.5 months together and she then had to go back to Serbia to arrange for her student visa, move to Australia, etc. Whilst she was in Serbia, I visited her and we went travelling around Europe (though there are no flights in her name as we went on a 3 week road trip, but we do have hotel reservations, lots of photographs from that trip and Facebook posts). She moved to Australia in early May 2018 and We've been living together since then. While she is not on my current lease agreement, We have a joint savings account and her phone bill, personal bank account, etc have our address. There are no transactions on the joint account as that's purely a savings account (we opened that just in case we have to do another student visa and need to show the funds required for study, stay, etc) and we just use our own accounts for our daily expenses. We want to apply for a spouse visa for her (her student visa expires in November this year). Even though we've been together for over a year (we have photos, emails, messages, my trip to Europe, letters from friends etc to prove our relationship), however since we were in a long distance relationship for part of that year, are we still eligible to apply for a spouse visa? I've spoken to a couple of migration agents and they say we are eligible, I'm a bit nervous about the fact that we haven't lived together for 12 months and just want to be absolutely certain as the agents' fees are $4000+ and not to mention $7000+ for the application.

Thanks for all your help!

If you are applying on de-facto grounds, you must have been in a de-facto relationship for 12 months. While that is not necessarily the same as 12 months co-habitation, in reality it means that you must have significantly combined your affairs and had a joint household, one way or the other, for at least 12 months at the time the application is lodged.

If you do not have the evidence to support this , the application will probably fail.

You could look into registering the relationship or getting married to overcome this.

 

[NS85]

Hi, I'm an Australia citizen and my partner is Serbian, currently in Australia on a student visa. We've been together for a year and 2 months now, however we were in a long distance relationship for about 9 months. We met whilst she was holidaying in Australia and we spent about 1.5 months together and she then had to go back to Serbia to arrange for her student visa, move to Australia, etc. Whilst she was in Serbia, I visited her and we went travelling around Europe (though there are no flights in her name as we went on a 3 week road trip, but we do have hotel reservations, lots of photographs from that trip and Facebook posts). She moved to Australia in early May 2018 and We've been living together since then. While she is not on my current lease agreement, We have a joint savings account and her phone bill, personal bank account, etc have our address. There are no transactions on the joint account as that's purely a savings account (we opened that just in case we have to do another student visa and need to show the funds required for study, stay, etc) and we just use our own accounts for our daily expenses. We want to apply for a spouse visa for her (her student visa expires in November this year). Even though we've been together for over a year (we have photos, emails, messages, my trip to Europe, letters from friends etc to prove our relationship), however since we were in a long distance relationship for part of that year, are we still eligible to apply for a spouse visa? I've spoken to a couple of migration agents and they say we are eligible, I'm a bit nervous about the fact that we haven't lived together for 12 months and just want to be absolutely certain as the agents' fees are $4000+ and not to mention $7000+ for the application.

Thanks for all your help!

If you are applying on de-facto grounds, you must have been in a de-facto relationship for 12 months. While that is not necessarily the same as 12 months co-habitation, in reality it means that you must have significantly combined your affairs and had a joint household, one way or the other, for at least 12 months at the time the application is lodged.

If you do not have the evidence to support this , the application will probably fail.

You could look into registering the relationship or getting married to overcome this.

Thanks CCMS. So if I've understood correctly, if we were to register our defacto relationship (which we both are more than happy to do), this would take care of the issue that we haven't lived together for 12 months? But I presume we will still have to gather all the evidence required to prove our relationship, i.e, put together a document which shows how me met and how the relationship developed, etc, photos, letters from family and friends confirming the relationship, etc? Also, the fact that our joint account is only a savings account and we don't use it for our day to day expenses, would that cause an issue?
Thanks for your advice on advance!!

 

[CCMS]

Thanks CCMS. So if I've understood correctly, if we were to register our defacto relationship (which we both are more than happy to do), this would take care of the issue that we haven't lived together for 12 months? But I presume we will still have to gather all the evidence required to prove our relationship, i.e, put together a document which shows how me met and how the relationship developed, etc, photos, letters from family and friends confirming the relationship, etc? Also, the fact that our joint account is only a savings account and we don't use it for our day to day expenses, would that cause an issue?
Thanks for your advice on advance!!

That is correct. All it does is waive the 12 month de-facto requirement. You still need solid relationship evidence and normally that would include a sufficiently long period of co-habitation.

 

[ampk]

You need evidence that is greater than 12 months old that proves you are in a de facto relationship.

If you don't have this, the application should be refused - it is a "requirement".

If you register the relationship or get married - this "requirement" does not need to be meet.

However as you seem to be aware, all other evidences (4 categories) that prove you are in a de facto relationship need to be meet/supplied.

 

[madi]

Hi, Everyone ,
I am new to the group and need your favourable suggestion. I have applied for Spouse visa (309/100) in June 2017 . I have attached all required documents but still further assessment is going on. How much time more they needed. I have applied from Pakistan and my husband is Permanent resident.

 

[May2016]

I applied May 2016 still waiting but from India.