Affidavit of ongoing marriage as evidence

[EastMeetsWest2018 9]

How necessary or useful is having friends or family provide statements vouching for our marriage being bona fide and legitamite?

 

We have been married almost 2 years and been living together in Singapore for almost 3 years. I have put together a visual timeline using collages of pictures from the beginning of our time together to now (25 pages of 2 collages per page each collage being about 5 pictures). We have 2 leases together (although one she is listed as an occupier rather than tenant so that if I lost my job and had to leave Singapore I could break the lease easier. The other she is listed as tenant). We have evidence of dozens of trips together, flowers sent, utility bills showing we stay at the same address, memorabilia from our wedding, cards from friends, etc...

 

We never comingled our finances, we both contribute to rent by me paying my wife my share and she submits the payment and we are responsible for other various bills. I have submitted evidence of life insurance policies and beneficiary forms on our CPF and retirement accounts and other financial accounts.

 

Is this enough? Is there any benefit of family or friends submitting notarized affidavits?

 

Thanks for any input and thoughts.

[ms_bobdog 501]

3 hours ago, EastMeetsWest2018 said:

How necessary or useful is having friends or family provide statements vouching for our marriage being bona fide and legitamite?

 

We have been married almost 2 years and been living together in Singapore for almost 3 years. I have put together a visual timeline using collages of pictures from the beginning of our time together to now (25 pages of 2 collages per page each collage being about 5 pictures). We have 2 leases together (although one she is listed as an occupier rather than tenant so that if I lost my job and had to leave Singapore I could break the lease easier. The other she is listed as tenant). We have evidence of dozens of trips together, flowers sent, utility bills showing we stay at the same address, memorabilia from our wedding, cards from friends, etc...

 

We never comingled our finances, we both contribute to rent by me paying my wife my share and she submits the payment and we are responsible for other various bills. I have submitted evidence of life insurance policies and beneficiary forms on our CPF and retirement accounts and other financial accounts.

 

Is this enough? Is there any benefit of family or friends submitting notarized affidavits?

 

Thanks for any input and thoughts.

When we submitted our i130, we didn't even send in any photos of us together, neither did I send in any passport stamps to show that I had visited him many times before we got married (I didn't know about front loading. I didn't know of this forum at that point!). I did send in evidence that he is the nominee to receive my CPF monies, and he's also nominated as the beneficiary of my endowment plans in Singapore. Notarised affidavits are actually not helpful at all. I think your leases, CPF and life insurance forms are good. If you want, you can send the photos as well. Having lived together already gives you an edge  

[JFH 12,190]

If you have been living together for 3 years you already have the gold medal in evidence. That will outweigh absolutely everything. Affidavits are the least valuable form of evidence and only useful for couples who struggle with evidence of time spent together for financial or religious/cultural reasons. 

 

Remember that the forms are multi-purpose. The same form is used by every couple and many of us have never lived together prior to immigrating so we have to be creative and look for other ways to convince a stranger that we are a genuine married couple even though we have never lived together before. 

 

Focus on evidence of living together (lease/mortgage, utility bills in both names, car ownership documents, bank statements, etc) and you'll be absolutely fine. 

Edited April 22, 2018 by JFH

[EastMeetsWest2018 9]

Is it worth writing an explanation of why we have not commingled our finances together? E.g. State that we have just kept our accounts as before marriage because that is what works for us and that I pay my wife my portion of the rent monthly and we divide up the remainder of the bills and attach the bills as evidence? Or is this not worth mentioning or only drawing attention to a non-issue? I'm trying to balance preemptively answering any questions they may have and putting too much information that may not be necessary and may actually provide more focus on issues they wouldn't have looked at before.

 

Any thoughts?

[Gringuitico 4]

If it were me (and bear in mind, my experience simply comes from having done this once, and my i-130 application was just approved)... I would not explicitly draw attention to your lack of co-mingled finances.  I would focus on the positive evidence you have in the application.  Your lease documents and insurance documents sound like the most potent forms of evidence.  The collage and story is also vital, in my opinion.

 

I'm going to differ from other (more experienced) folk here and suggest that you still include one or two sworn statements from friends that attest to your long, storied, and on-going  relationship.  I accept that such things, independently, are not super powerful as evidence, compared to legal and financial documents.  That said, I've also been told by immigration lawyers that the VARIETY of types of evidence is a factor in your favor.  Also, the burden of generating such letters is small, so I say it has a high benefit to cost ratio, and I'd rather err on the side of overwhelming evidence (my packet for my wife was around 180 pages, including all of our passport pages, blanks included). 

 

As a side note, I don't know about your friends or family, but it's been my experience that close friends LOVE having the opportunity to support you all in your process.  Most friends can't do anything to help, and they may actually really appreciate the opportunity to make a difference, small though it might be.

[geowrian 22,337]

Affidavits provide very little to no benefit in themselves. However, if they provide detailed accounts of specific circumstances to back up other evidence, they can be helpful. For instance, "X is a great person and they are such a great couple and I have known them for X years." is basically useless. The CO cannot determine the validity of those types of statements. However, "X, Y, and myself went on a trip to xyz on mm/dd/yyyy where we all enjoyed seeing Z, Z, and adventuring up ZZZ mountain together." That combined with photos of the group and receipts and such at those events provides a better view of the relationship IMO. It's no longer just somebody's word about their character or the relationship, but about the interactions and time spent together.

[EastMeetsWest2018 9]

6 hours ago, geowrian said:

Affidavits provide very little to no benefit in themselves. However, if they provide detailed accounts of specific circumstances to back up other evidence, they can be helpful. For instance, "X is a great person and they are such a great couple and I have known them for X years." is basically useless. The CO cannot determine the validity of those types of statements. However, "X, Y, and myself went on a trip to xyz on mm/dd/yyyy where we all enjoyed seeing Z, Z, and adventuring up ZZZ mountain together." That combined with photos of the group and receipts and such at those events provides a better view of the relationship IMO. It's no longer just somebody's word about their character or the relationship, but about the interactions and time spent together.

Do you think it would be helpful providing a summary of why we do not have joint accounts or will that just draw more attention to it?

[geowrian 22,337]

34 minutes ago, EastMeetsWest2018 said:

Do you think it would be helpful providing a summary of why we do not have joint accounts or will that just draw more attention to it?

I wouldn't focus on that. Provide the evidence you do have and make the strongest case you can for yourself.

[pushbrk 12,979]

Don't make excuses for anything.  You don't need them.  Living together three years outweighs ANYTHING else.  Focus on evidence of being together and forget about all the other nonsense.