De Facto Relationship - Enough Evidence?

[planningahead]

Hi all

 

My partner and I have been dating since May 2014 and we moved in together on 1 August 2015. Unfortunately we did not co-sign a lease and the lease agreement was on my name. Since 1 August 2015 I was also out of the country for three months (April 2016 to July 2016) due to work purposes. Effectively this means out of the last  14 months we spent 11 months living together and 3 months apart. We don't have combined bank accounts but I did manage to pull together the list of evidence items below.

 

Could you please have a look through this and let me know whether you think this is enough strong evidence to support that we are a defacto couple?

 

Evidence:

•  A letter we received from our insurance broker dated August 2015 advising that our household insurance policy is effective 1 August 2015 and contains both our names on the letter and our address mutual address.
• A letter dated August 2016 from our insurance broker confirming that we've had a combined insurance policy for household insurance as life partners and includes the address that the insurance policy covers.  It's worth noting that this letter evidence the fact that we still had a combined household insurance policy even during the three months when I was in Australia for work purposes.
• Medical aid details, including a letter confirming that my partner has been a dependent on my medical aid since 1 September 2015 as an adult dependent in the capacity of a domestic partner; my medical aid membership certificate and my medical aid TAX certificate. Again, my partner continued to be on my medical aid even during the three months when I was in Australia for work purposes.
• A document containing all of my bank statements for the past 2 years which shows that my partner and I have made plenty of payments to each other throughout our relationship. Each transaction I made to him or received from him contains his name as a reference for the transaction on the bank statement. The statement's also clearly show that I made money transfers to my partner while I was in Australia for 3 months for work (he needed the money to buy groceries and stuff).
• A document which includes screenshots of Skype and WhatsApp showing that we stayed in regular contact throughout the period of April 2016 to July 2016 when I was in Australia for work purposes. 
• A document containing photos of us throughout the period of our relationship. The photos are screenshots of Google Photos which is a backup facility and it shows the original date the photos were backed-up to Google Photos. Unfortunately we don't really use Facebook so we couldn't take screenshots of photos posted on Facebook.
• A couple of emails between me and my partner. Also a very intimate email I sent to my partner's father in March 2016 questioning his lack of involvement in his son's life. I know it's very personal, but the email made explicit reference to the fact that he is my partner and that I was worried about the impact of their strained relationship and I'm sending the email because I care for my partner.
• A letter from our landlord and caretaker confirming that we live together as a couple (the lease is only in my name).
• Signed letters written by me and my partner describing our relationship.
• Form 888 completed by my mother, my partner's aunt and a common friend confirming our relationship.

 

Is this enough strong evidence? I feel like it is but I'm sure everyone here has experienced some paranoia as part of their migration process...

 

Please let me know what you think....

Edited October 16, 2016 by planningahead

[21yearsoutofrsa]

Your will showing each other as beneficiaries?

[Titus]

We provided much less evidence and it wasn't questioned....

 

Although, I thought I had read somewhere that the Form 888, should ideally not be completed by family.

[planningahead]

7 hours ago, 20yearsoutofrsa said:

Your will showing each other as beneficiaries?

 

Unfortunately we don't have wills - I was thinking of getting wills but that might seem slightly suspicious...

 

3 hours ago, Titus said:

We provided much less evidence and it wasn't questioned....

 

Although, I thought I had read somewhere that the Form 888, should ideally not be completed by family.

 

I will ask our migration agent (migrate2oz) about family completing form 888. I told them I'm getting my mom and his aunt to complete it and also one of our mutual friends and they said that should be fine...

[HermanLJ]

@planningahead

 

I don't mean to sound condescending but if you are using a migration agent you are paying them to answer these kind of questions! I too am using Migrate2Oz because I was also uncertain about evidence and other visa related queries. They are very experienced and will be able to give you the best advice.

[planningahead]

Hi all,

 

I thought I'd just give an update in case someone might have some doubts in the future as to whether they have supplied enough evidence. I was really worried that we did not have enough evidence given that the rental agreement and most of the accounts are on my name (we only had one old letter containing both our names and same address).

 

In the end, the evidence I mentioned above was more than sufficient. The CO did not have any queries about our relationship docs at all.

 

Lastly, most of our relationship evidence was not certified. The only information that was certified was the following:

 

Quote

• A letter from our landlord and caretaker confirming that we live together as a couple (the lease is only in my name).
• Form 888 completed by my mother, my partner's aunt and a common friend confirming our relationship.

 

I hope this helps to ease some minds! Even though I was advised above to direct these sort of questions to my migration agent, I would be happy to share my experience with anyone that needs some extra support and encouragement.  I could not have gone through this process without my agent or the support of this community.