The financial aspects of your relationship – one of the four pillars of relationship that immigration looks at when assessing whether your relationship is genuine and continuing. If you haven’t already, you can also check out my blog on the ‘four pillars of relationship’ for an overview of all four pillars, but in this blog I’m going to go into depth around what the financial pillar is.
So what’s the financial pillar all about? Here Immigration wants to see how you and your partner are sharing and managing your finances as a couple. They will be looking to see what your financial ties are to each other and the level at which you are pooling together your financial resources. The financial pillar is going to look different for every couple and there is no ‘one size fits all’ but it’s important that you are ultimately demonstrating the financial ties you and your partner have to each other.
What type of documents can you provide under the Financial Pillar?
Immigration will expect to see evidence of not only finances being shared, but evidence of any financial commitments and ties you have to each other. For example, this can include evidence of a joint bank account, joint mortgage documents, joint loans and credit cards, wills and superannuation information.
If you’re looking at these example documents and stressing then let me stop you right there. There’s no one mandatory document that needs to be provided to demonstrate how you and your partner might be sharing your finances. In my nearly 10 years of helping couples put together their Partner Visa, I’ve never seen two couples who manage their finances the same way.
Some couples might have investment properties together, several car loans, wills in each other’s names, share portfolio’s together whereas other couples might have none of these. It’s quite consistent amongst younger couples that they might not have some of the joint financial and legal ties to each other, simply because they’re not at a stage in their lives to make these financial investments and decisions.
If that sounds like you, then it’s important you use your relationship statements to explain what evidence you have, as well as evidence you don’t have and why.
We don’t live together so our Financial Pillar isn’t very strong
Lots of couples are in the same boat when it comes to their location and not living together at time of application (or even time of decision). There’s different reasons for why you might not be living together. For example, you might be applying from outside Australia, while your partner is living in Australia. Or perhaps your jobs/religious or cultural beliefs don’t allow you to live together.
But despite living apart, you still need to show what the financial aspects of your relationship looks like. Do you transfer money to and from each other? Is one persons income significantly higher than the other persons, so there is some level of financial support being provided between you both? Or perhaps you have already taken steps towards estate planning and making plans for how you are going to combine your finances once you are living together? These are all factors to consider and no one document should just be looked at in isolation.
What if we don’t share a bank account?
This is the biggest question that always comes up when I speak with couples about their finances.
Of course having a joint bank account will help to demonstrate how you and your partner share finances, but it’s not the be all and end all. I’ve seen cases where a couple has been married over 10 years with no joint bank account which have been approved. It’s not enough to just ask ‘do we need to have a joint bank account’. The answer is going to depend on all of your other evidence. In some cases I might recommend a couple opening up a joint account, while in others it might not be necessary.
I’m not sure if my application meets all the criteria
It can be really tricky to understand whether you have met all the relevant criteria when it comes to your Partner Visa. And after all, Partner Visas are subjective.
It’s always a good idea to have an expert review your application to ensure you’ve dotted your i’s and crossed your t’s. At the Partner Visa Academy we do exactly that and review your application in its entirety and provide you with a written report on your case.
Reach out to us to learn more and find out how we can help you with your Partner Visa journey.
IMPORTANT: Please note, this does not constitute Immigration advice. Always seek advice from a Registered Migration Agent before applying for an Australian Visa. Migration Law is constantly changing. This information is accurate only at the time of publication.
