Last updated: 11 December 2023

The Financial Aspects Of The Relationship

The Australian partner visa application requires that the applicant and sponsor provide evidence of the relationship against 4 criteria. That is, the case officer will take your partner visa application and look at all the evidence and what you have written and weigh it up against 4 things:

1. Financial aspects of the relationship
2. Social aspects of the relationship
3. Nature of the commitment to each other
4. Nature of the household

These 4 criteria have been called 4 elements of the relationship, 4 pillars of the relationship and 4 aspects of the relationship. They all mean the same thing and the Department changes the name of these as much as they change their name.

Aspects of the relationship is what I knew it to be when I first wrote the book so I’ll continue using it. I think my time is better spent telling you the important details of how to prove your relationship against the criteria than trying to update the name every time the Department decides to give itself a facelift.

Anyway, today we’re going to go through how to write details of the financial aspects of the relationship.

Not only do you need to write about the details, you also need to provide supporting documents as evidence and we can go through what this means for you.

Generally, this criteria wants you to show that you mix your money, that you pool your financial means together and pay for everything as a unit. The assumption is that if you are living together and are in a committed mutually exclusive relationship, that you would share finances as well.

So in the Regulations, they’ve helpfully (depending on how you see it) provided the following as advice:

• any joint ownership of real estate or other major assets; and
• any joint liabilities; and
• the extent of any pooling of financial resources, especially in relation to major financial commitments; and
• whether one person in the relationship owes any legal obligation in respect of the other; and
• the basis of any sharing of day-to-day household expenses;

I’ll break down each one in the following sections and give you more information and explanation as to what the case officer is reviewing your partner visa application against.

For more detailed examples and samples of good and bad evidence, including answers to common questions regarding the financial aspects of the relationship, refer to the book. You’ll get illustrative examples that will help you gather the evidence and prepare it in a way that will help your application, not hurt it (yes, there is a wrong way to do this and it may impact your application).

Joint ownership of real estate or other major assets

This is quite self-explanatory.  If you own your home together or any other real estate property, then provide evidence of this. This could be the land title, the contracts, any certificates or notarized documents to prove that the applicant and the sponsor are joint owners of real estate.

If you own property together overseas, then make sure you translate any title documents or any evidence that’s not in English. Remember, all documents submitted with your partner visa application should be in English or it will delay the processing of your application. Always check if your translation is a NAATI certified translator and I explain why this is the case in this post here.

Now in terms of how to write about owning property together as part of the financial aspects of your relationship, you should put this in your personal statement or statutory declaration. Write about what you own, where you own it and if it’s not an equal share, then the percentage that you own.

Any major assets can include a car, a motorbike, motorhome or anything of significant value. Maybe you own an antique china set together, who knows! If you think it’s a sizeable investment and you both own it, it wouldn’t hurt to write that in your statutory declarations.

Depending on where you are on the fur parent scale, you might not see a pet as an ‘asset’ to be owned but I know during COVID-19, a lot of couples adopted pets at great financial costs to them and I personally think that these are significant investments – particularly in and to your future family. So, if you’re a dog or cat parent (or ferret, lizard, snake or any other pet parent) write about here.

A pet is akin to a child to some and along with it comes with significant liabilities too such as insurance, vet visits, the care and upkeep of the pet – all of these are worthwhile writing about.

Joint liabilities

A liability is where you and your partner are legally responsible for something.

So if you have a debt together then that’s a big piece of evidence towards the financial aspects of your relationship. Relating back to the section above, if you bought your home with a mortgage, then that mortgage is a joint liability. The home is the joint asset so you have effectively killed two birds with one stone!

If you financed any of the above assets, these are also joint liabilities – that is, if you took out a loan to buy a motorbike, car, or van for example, this is a liability. If you did it together, it’s a joint liability – however you have to prove that you did it together.

Sometimes I see one partner already has an asset or a car loan and the ownership is theirs alone but the other partner contributes to the repayments or the upkeep because the car is now brough into the relationship and used by both. This is absolutely OK, you just need to provide the supporting documentation to prove this. I go through this specific scenario in the book and I have some samples you can look at to see how other couples have written and proved this point.

The extent of any pooling of financial resources, especially in relation to major financial commitments;

This requires more of an explanation in your personal statements or statutory declarations. At the very least, if you have a joint bank account then this will show that you are pooling your financial resources. This means that you are both adding money to the joint account and taking money out of it in order to live your lives together.

A joint bank account statement that shows the incomings and outgoings will be good evidence of this.

Whether one person in the relationship owes any legal obligation in respect of the other;

This one also relates to debts or assets and basically if your partner has lent you money, given you money or the other way around, if there is evidence of this, include it. Also write about the circumstances and explain what this is in relation to the financial aspect of the relationship in your statutory declaration.

I have an example in my book about a couple who did just this and while the loan was informal, there was an arrangement to repay. To the couple it seemed insignificant at first until I pointed out that if they elaborated on that point, it would go towards supporting this point to proving financial aspects of the relationship. In the book, I’ll show you how they did it.

Samples, examples, evidence and answers to questions

In the book I go further into each section above and explain how to give details about the financial aspects of the relationship and provide examples of the typical evidence that you can submit.

I break down the sample evidence piece by piece and show you how to answer this question. These are the checklist of documents that I provide my clients and are the examples that have been successful in partner visa applications.

Some readers have written in to ask about certain living situation scenarios and I answer how to prove the financial situation, particularly when one partner contributes more than the other. I go through a few different scenarios and what evidence you should submit in order to prove the financial aspects of your relationship. Here’s a link to an explanation of a scenario about living together overseas and not having bills or documents addressed to both the applicant and sponsor.

In the supporting resources with the book, I give you sample statutory declarations from good and bad partner visa applications to show you how to write about the financial aspects of your relationship. There’s 17 good and bad statutory declarations and includes examples of what has been written in the Form 888s that your supporting witnesses will need to write.