Partner Visa Australia

Australia Partner Visa

A Partner Visa Australia application can be complex. People feel that just because they are in a relationship, they can apply, although relationships are much more complex when it comes to Australia immigration. For a successful Australian Partner Visa application you need to be able to prove to the department of Immigration that you’re either in a committed de facto spousal relationship or a committed married relationship.

4 Pillars of Evidence for an Australian Partner Visa

Regardless of partner visa subclass, Australian Immigration will be assessing your application against 4 key criteria:

• Financial
• Social
• Nature of your Household
• Nature of your Commitment

Financial Aspect of an Australian Partner Visa Application

Every relationship is different and not all relationships join finances together in a joint bank account. However, there are certain aspects of a relationship if you are in a genuine, committed relationship, either de facto marriage, that you do have certain evidence to support that. You may not share a joint bank account, but what other financial commitments you do have? Maybe it’s a mortgage, maybe it’s a joint lease together, maybe it’s joint ownership of a car. There’s all sorts of things that you can have to show that evidence of financial commitment.

Social Aspects of Partner Visa Australia Application

When they look at the social the social aspects of your relationship, usually the most, most the easiest. For most people, the social aspects is recognition by your family and friends that you are in a genuine, committed spousal relationship. Now, they’re not just saying, yes, you make a fabulous couple and we see them holding hands and you’re often always going out to dinner and are genuinely in love. Of course, that’s all part of a relationship, but it’s not what constitutes a de facto relationship. Marriage is usually obvious to everyone that you’re living together and you’ve got certain commitments. A de facto relationship is exactly the same level of commitment as a married relationship, the de facto relationship is that you’re living together as a committed couple, not just flat mates, not just boyfriend & girlfriend, sharing a house with some other people. It’s a committed de facto relationship. So you’ve got to show the same level of evidence that you would show as if you’re married.

Nature of Your Household Partner Visa Test

How do you run your household? Who looks after the payments of bills? Who looks after the maintenance, who looks after putting out the garbage, who does the washing up, who does the cooking. The dept. of Immigration want to see how you operate and run your household. There’s a wide variety of things you could do to provide evidence for that.

Nature of Commitment Partner Visa Australia

With this pillar Australia are looking to see what level of commitment you have to each another. What are your future plans? What have you already committed to each other? Maybe you’ve committed to getting a dog? It can be any level of commitment. You don’t have to say, yes, we’re going to have children buy a house and live happily ever after. That’s not what makes up an everyday relationship these days and the department understands that.

12 Months Living Together for Partner Visa Australia

You’ve got to show that you have been living together for a minimum of 12 months. And that evidence of the 12 months can’t just be photographs and statutory declarations. It has to be fairly substantive evidence to show that external organizations such as government bodies recognize your relationship.

Register Relationship for Partner Visa Australia

If you do register your relationship, it carries the same weight at Immigration as if you’re married so you don’t have to actually provide evidence of 12 months cohabitation or 12 months living together.

The processing for offshore applications can often be a lot quicker than applications lodged in Australia.

What are offshore partner visa applications

• all applications lodged outside of Australia
• prospective marriage visa
• subclass 300
• subclass 309
• subclass 100

Offshore applications can be made whether you are engaged to be married, whether you are living together overseas in a de facto relationship or living together overseas in a married relationship, or perhaps you’ve actually got married and are living in two separate countries. It may have been an arranged marriage whereby you got married and then your partner, your Australian citizen partner or a permanent resident had to return back to Australia for work reasons or those are acceptable.

Prospective marriage visa

The prospective marriage, the 300 visa is for people that are looking at getting married. You don’t have to get married before you enter Australia. In fact, the requirement for this particular visa is that you don’t get married until after the grant of your visa and within three of the nine month time frame that the visa is granted.

The prospective marriage visa requires a commitment to get married within nine months of the grant, your visa, because the visa once granted is for the duration of nine months and you must at least enter Australia once after the granted a visa and prior to you getting married. Now, there’s no restriction of where you get married. You can get married in Australia or overseas.

Prospective Marriage Visa rights

1. Full work rights
2. Multiple entry permits
3. Live with your partner
4. No access to Medicare

Prospective marriage visas often are processed a lot quicker and a lot sooner than married or de facto spouse or relationships. And they also don’t require as much documentation because you don’t have to provide evidence that you’re actually living together for the prospective marriage visa. It suits a lot of people whereby they they are separated, living in different countries and it is difficult for the the overseas applicant to come out to Australia even on a visa to visa to come and visit. The prospective marriage visa is a really good one for those that are separated and have a genuine plan to get married within that nine month period, and once you are married, what it does allow you then to lodge a further part in the visa application based on you being married.

When processing takes longer than a prospective marriage visa

In this instance you’ll be given the bridging visa, which will bridge you over when your current prospective marriage visa expires and before your partner visa is approved. It will bridge you over to allow you to legally continue living and working in Australia. It also provides you with access to Medicare.

Bridging Visa for Partner Visa Australia

The beauty of the Bridging Visa is that it also gives you full work rights and unrestricted work rights whilst you’re waiting for that partner visa to process. And again, upon lodgement, you get access to Medicare. Just be aware, with the bridging visa, lodgement doesn’t override your current visa. The only thing that overrides your current visa is the grant of the partner visa or another visa. So if you’re on a student visa, for example, you’ve got another 18 months to go. You really don’t like your course and you think I’ll lodge a partner visa to get off that student visa, that won’t work because the partner visa could take 12 months and you must continue adhering to the visa conditions of your current visa.

That condition still stands and the bridging visa will only come in when the current temporary visa you’re on expires. So just be aware of that because many people do make a mistake.

Australia Partner Visa Requirement

If you have been in a married or de facto relationship for a minimum of three years, which means that you have been living together for a minimum of three years as a married or de facto couple, you they will assess your application and possibly grant permanent residency straight away rather than going through a two step process.

Most often the requirement is a two step process because many people don’t have evidence or they haven’t been in a relationship. You may have known someone perhaps for five years and been in boyfriend girlfriend or same sex relationship, but not necessarily in a de facto or married relationship.

The Australian department of Immigration will assess your application, see that you are in a genuine relationship, and then they will grant you what’s called a provisional visa which will allow you to come to Australia with full work rights. This provisional visa will be indefinite until your permanent residency has been decided.

Now, when they look at the permanent residency stage, they view that two years from the date of lodgement, not two years, the date of your provisional visa was granted, but two years from the date of lodgement and what they will require at that second stage is further evidence to show that you’re still living together as either in a married or de facto relationship. They will require updated evidence of that relationship to show that you are living together and recognized as a genuine couple.

Australia Partner Visa Timeframe

The first stage takes 18 months, then you’ve only got another six months to wait until you’re eligible for permanent residency. The second permanent residency stage can take up to 12 months. Australia Partner Visa applications can therefore take up to 3 years from start to finish.

The reason the Australian Partner Visa takes up to three years is that the second stage does not have processing priority. You’re already in Australia living with your partner and you’ve got full work rights, full access to traveling in and out. So they don’t give priority to that simply because they don’t have the resources. They put the priority into those that are still waiting for the visa. And the second stage may take a little longer. It just depends on the time of year, the volume that’s in the in the pipeline. So you can be looking at 3 years from the day you lodge your visa application to when you get permanent residency.

It doesn’t mean that it’s going to take three years for you to get that first visa, to allow you to come and live in Australia or remain in Australia, it simply means the entire process from beginning to end to get your permanent residency could take three years.

Partner Visa Australia Onshore Application

For people living in Australia with their partner already. You may be already on a temporary visa. That could be a working holiday visa, could be a student visa and may simply just be a visitor visa. It might be a temporary skilled work visa. If you have been living as a de facto couple or you’ve been living as a married couple, then you can lodge an onshore partner visa application and same process as the offshore partner visa is played out.

If you haven’t been living together for three years or more in a married or de facto relationship, then they will grant the provisional visa first and then consider the permanent residency after two years of when you’ve lodged it.

Onshore Partner Visa Application with Children

If you’re in a relationship for two years and have children then the Department of Immigration will consider permanent residency right off the bat. And you don’t have to go through the two step process. Once you have lodged a valid onshore application and are here on a substantive visa, you will be granted a bridging visa that just sits in the background and not it doesn’t come into effect until your current visa expires. So, for example, if you’re here on a visa and you’ve only got two months before your visa expires and the partner visa is going to take a minimum of 12 months to process, then once the visitor visa expires, the bridging visa will automatically kick in and allow you to legally live here in Australia with your partner and children.

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