@barricade said:
hello, question po.
yung girlfriend ko two years kami nag live in together. tapos last year June 2019 nag aral sya sa Au. Now we want to apply sana for defacto kaso hindi kami nag share ng mga bills almost everything was under my name when we lived together. wala rin kaming joint savings accounts. We save separately.
may chance po bang i-prove yung defacto kapag ganitong situation? ano po kaya yung other ways or options namin to prove na legit yung relationship namin? thanks
Hi @barricade. When my de facto partner (DP) and I lodged our 190, we did not have a joint bank account, all lease agreements were under my name and we did not have a property named to both of us back in the Philippines. Here's what we submitted as proof of our de facto relationship:
1) We did share in paying our monthly bills so we included online bank transfers as proof of sharing finances. We submitted his bank statements wherein we highlighted the transfers that he made going to my bank account (each transfer bore my name in it).
2) We again submitted his bank statements, this time highlighting the address. It is the same address as our current apartment where we live together. So, even though the tenancy contract is under my name, with his bank statement, it also shows that he lives in the same address as mine. This is not limited to bank statement. Any other account (eg. your girlfriend's phone bills, government accounts, etc.) is fine as long as it bears the same address as your utility bills and/or tenancy contract.
3) We provided LOTS of photos. We compiled photos by year from the start of our relationship. We simply used MS Word, put captions with the date, where was the photo taken, who took the photo and who are the people in the photos with us. This shows that your relationship is known to people. So for example, my DP and I have been in a relationship since 2015. We started living together since 2016. We still included photos from 2015 as it somehow helped in showing the evolution of our relationship. We included photos of just the two of us, inside the house, and outside the house doing our hobbies. We also included group photos of us doing our hobbies with other people.
4) We provided copies of all our travel tickets including our travels as couples and travels as families. Again, this adds sa pagiging genuine ng relationship nyo if you or her family is shown to be involved in your relationship. We are both expats to Middle East so even our travel tickets going back to Pinas during our visit back to the home country, we included as proof.
5) We submitted statutory declarations. We drafted a letter showing the evolution of our relationship. Story-telling talaga from the beginning til now, and future plans. Four essential things you need to declare in that letter: your financial commitment to each other, nature of your household (as in ultimong kung sino naghuhugas ng plato at nagtatapon ng basura everyday, at sino ang in-charge sa laundry, etc.), social aspects of your relationship, and your commitment to each other. We had it witnessed in the Australian Embassy here in the Middle East country where we are working. So, it looks like a sworn statement. Something like that. We also prepared a statutory declaration from people outside the two of us: one from my father, one from his sister, one from my bestfriend and another one from my friend whom we visited in Australia before. We ended up not needing them as our Case Officer did not ask for any further evidence of our relationship.
And that's it. Hope this helps.
All the best!