Registered Relationship Certificates

A Registered Relationship Certificate. A Civil Partnership Certificate. A Domestic Relationship Certificate. A Civil Union Certificate. A Significant Relationship Certificate.

You’ve probably heard of these in connection with getting an Australian Partner Visa, but there’s a good chance you’ve heard only part of the story. The missing details though? These are ABSOLUTELY CRUCIAL if you want your visa application to be granted, and not to be horrified by a tragic VISA REFUSAL!

So please read on if this matters to you…….

What do you need to qualify for an Australian Partner Visa?

Why? Who am I, and why am I worth listening to? Why is what I’m about to tell you worth considerably more than what someone tells you on a Facebook group? Or what a friend tells you?

Answer? I’m Jeff Harvie. Registered Migration Agent (MARN 0959797) from Down Under Visa. I’m an Australian Citizen running the busiest Migration Agency practice in the Philippines, and possibly in all of South East Asia. We manage visa applications to Australia for the wives and partners of Australians from the Philippines, and also from Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia. 

We’ve also been doing this for many years, and manage more than 200 Partner Visa applications every year. And we do this for both MARRIED and DE FACTO RELATIONSHIP couples. 

So who do you listen to? Me, who’s managed several thousand partner visa applications over the years, or someone on Facebook who did one application?

Why am I qualifying myself to speak authoritatively on this topic?

Because lately I’m getting a lot of clients questioning this! Seems to be a flood of bad advice floating around social media and (shockingly) by some qualified advisors who should know better!

And I don’t want to see anyone stuff up their future happiness based on bad advice! 

So back to the question! What do you need to qualify for an Australian Partner Visa?

You can be:

1. Engaged (for a Prospective Marriage Visa only)
2. Married
3. In an ESTABLISHED de facto relationship

One of these options! Nothing else! No try-before-you-buy relationship. No “we intend to…”. No “Next year, or the year after……”. Bottom line is you need to be committed to each other for ALL of these options. If you’re not ready? If you’re sitting on the fence and keeping your options open? Then go look at a Tourist Visa! You’re not ready.

Engaged

For a Prospective Marriage Visa (PMV) you should NOT be married. You must, however, be engaged to be married and intending to marry soon. It is expected and required that you will marry within 12 months of the PMV being granted. You can’t put it off and you CANNOT apply as a de facto couple. And you may NOT use a Registered Relationship Certificate in place of a wedding!

Married

For an OFFSHORE Partner Visa, you should be married (or in an existing de facto relationship) before the visa is granted! Yes, for THIS Partner Visa you may lodge the visa application BEFORE the visa is granted. However you should intend to marry very soon after the application lodgment.

Best advice for an Offshore Partner Visa is still that you should marry before lodging. Keep it simple!

And an ONSHORE Partner Visa (which is the one you apply for when the visa applicant is already in Australia when you apply for the partner visa)? The Onshore Partner Visa requires that you be married (OR de facto as above!) BEFORE the visa application is LODGED! DO NOT DELAY!

Most couples apply for Onshore Partner Visas whilst on a Tourist Visa inside Australia. This means (usually) that you have three months from the time she arrives in Australia to marry and lodge the visa application. It takes a month to get a license to marry in Australia. No one-day Elvis weddings in Australia! START EARLY!

De Facto Relationship

Section 5CB(2) of the Migration Act (Cth) 1958

(2)  For the purposes of subsection (1), a person is in a de facto relationship with another person if they are not in a married relationship with each other but:

(a)  they have a mutual commitment to a shared life to the exclusion of all others; and

(b)  the relationship between them is genuine and continuing; and

(c)  they:

(i)  live together; or

(ii)  do not live separately and apart on a permanent basis; and

(d)  they are not related by family.

What on earth does this mean?

• It means you are ALREADY living in an established shared-life relationship. 

• It means you are living together, with provisions for time-apart when you really have no choice. 

• But FORGET trying to claim a de facto relationship when you have never lived together And are holding-back on committing yourself completely, ie not wanting to share finances and asset ownership! 

• What this means is that you need to set-up-house together at the beginning of the relationship, and show that you really want to be together and do so unless visa provisions keep you apart. Your relationship isn’t put on-hold anytime you’r apart!

Where does a Registered Relationship fit it with any of the above??

It fits in with De Facto Relationships.

It does not REPLACE De Facto Relationships! It merely supports the existing de facto relationship and makes it official. Your relationship is registered with the Department of Births, Deaths and Marriages in your state.

Can you just get a Registered Relationship Certificate and apply for a Partner Visa?

If that’s all you have? You would be making a very bad decision, and would almost certainly face Visa Refusal!

You STILL have to prove that you are in an existing, committed, shared-life de facto relationship! There is no getting around this one! Don’t spend two weeks together in the Philippines, get the certificate and think you can lodge an Australian Partner Visa application. It doesn’t work like that!

How DOES a Registered Relationship Certificate help then?

Under normal circumstances? WITHOUT the certificate? You need to have been in your de facto relationship for 12 months at the time of visa application lodgment! Not 11 months and 29 days. 12 months!

A Registered Relationship means you can lessen that time to (rule of thumb) 6 months! Can you apply for it one day and lodge partner visa application the day after? Technically, yes! But your case will be painfully weak! They will still assess your visa application on evidence of having “a mutual commitment to a shared life”! Would YOU believe the genuineness of a relationship of a few weeks, or would YOU have more confidence in them having 6 months together? Fairly obvious answer, right?

So the certificate HELPS! It does NOT replace anything!

So don’t listen to crackpots…..be they Facebook Gurus or even Registered Migration Agents or Migration Lawyers who lack experience! 

Who can get a Registered Relationship?

• Residents of states OTHER than Western Australia and Northern Territory. Yes, that’s right. Does not apply to residents of WA or NT!
• You are both adults
• You aren’t biologically related
• At least ONE of you lives in that state. In Tasmania BOTH of you need to be living in that state!
• Neither of you is still legally married* to someone else!

*Even if you or she are separated from their ex-spouse, if still legally married you can’t do this! You CAN however still apply for an Australian Partner Visa based on a de facto relationship whilst either or even BOTH of you are still legally married…..as long as that relationship is no longer active!

Jeff Harvie is a Registered Migration Agent (MARN 0959797) from Australia, but resident in Philippines since 2010 with his Filipina wife Mila and large extended family. Experienced with the Philippines culture, cross-cultural relationships and bureaucracy as well as Australian visas and Australian Migration Law, he writes with authority and fortunately with enough informality and humour that the average Aussie gets it! Down Under Visa specialises in visas for Australians in relationships with ladies and gents from Philippines, Thailand, China and Vietnam. Read MORE