# Statement about the history of our relationship (partner visa 820)



## sina1308 (Jul 31, 2013)

Hi guys, 

I would like to double-check something concerning the statement that my partner and I have to write about the history of our relationship. Is this correct ? : 
- we need to write one statement each. 
- i have to give details about the 4 aspects ( History of your relationship, Financial evidence, nature of the household, social context) 
- We have to sign those documents 
- the statement can be handwritten and signed and doesn't need to be certified (i can do it though if i wanted to) 
The statement can also be typed with your computer and then signed and doesn't need to be certified
- I could also write the statement on a stat dec. 

How long should this statement roughly be ? (how many pages ) 

I would appreciate your help !


----------



## GadoGadoGal (Nov 20, 2014)

All totally correct. For reference for everyone, this is what they ask for in the Partner Migration booklet (page 39):

_*History of your relationship*
You and your partner must each provide a statement regarding the history of your relationship, including: 
•	how, when and where you first met; 
•	how your relationship developed; 
•	when you decided to marry or commence a de facto partner relationship;
•	your domestic arrangements - how you support each other financially, physically and emotionally and when this level of commitment began;
•	any periods of separation - when and why the separation occurred, for how long and how you maintained your relationship during the period of separation; and
•	your future plans.
The statements written by you and your partner can be on ordinary writing paper or a statutory declaration form may be used. Each statement or statutory declaration must be signed and dated by the author. _

The page number is arbitrary; it depends on your situation and even your style of writing. It could be a few pages (~3) or several if you have a long relationship and complicated relationship history. Yours could be long and your partners could be longer. As long as you provide information on all they request in the Partner Migration booklet as well as writing about things that are difficult to show or explain through evidence, your statement should be sufficient.


----------



## sina1308 (Jul 31, 2013)

Thank you so so much GadoGadoGal  Your answers are always so detailed and great. You are helping me a lot and I thank you for that !


----------



## monkeyyyy (Jun 5, 2014)

As my understanding, that is no official requirement how many pages or how many words you have to write, it really up to you, some people may write 1-2 pages some may write 10 pages, it depends on how your structure and how your English skills

I wrote my statement on 4 pages, my partner write 2.5 pages (actually I draft for him and he correct that afterwards)


----------



## crolladx (Apr 4, 2014)

yeah i don't think they would be a limit on how many pages you can write..for us, we write our one under each of these heading.

*
History of our relationship - even just this heading mine has already taken 3 - 4 pages.... lol
Financial aspect 
Period of separation
Social context
Future plan
*
GadoGadogal couldn't have said any more clearly, this part should be the fun part as you recalled all those memories together from the beginning all the way up to today


----------



## virginiap (Nov 21, 2014)

Does this apply to the online application as well? Because I have written in the boxes and they were all divided in those categories, so I am wondering whether I would have to attach another document.


----------



## GadoGadoGal (Nov 20, 2014)

Hi Virginiap,
I believe I remember that other forum members have filled in the boxes in the online application and did not upload the additional statements, but I am not 100% certain if that applied to all statements, or just the four areas whereas the history of relationship statement was still signed and uploaded. We've chosen to upload all the statements as separate documents so that we don't have to worry about page limit or having a CO that later requests them with our signatures. Here is another thread where this was discussed recently: http://www.australiaforum.com/visas...declaration-applicant-partner-visa-820-a.html


----------



## CollegeGirl (Nov 10, 2012)

monkeyyyy said:


> As my understanding, that is no official requirement how many pages or how many words you have to write, it really up to you, some people may write 1-2 pages some may write 10 pages, it depends on how your structure and how your English skills
> 
> I wrote my statement on 4 pages, my partner write 2.5 pages (actually I draft for him and he correct that afterwards)


Each person is supposed to write their statement in their own words. You're not supposed to write the statement for your partner. They're pretty explicit about that.

COs have even mentioned that they don't even want the person's partner making grammatical or style changes.. it's supposed to be the person's own words.


----------



## CollegeGirl (Nov 10, 2012)

From the Partner Migration Booklet, Page 27:



> The department prefers that these statements not be duplicates of each other, ie. formulaic, but *should be written in each declarant's own words*. Otherwise, the department may request that you provide new statements.


(Emphasis mine.)

So they're not going to deny your application for it or anything, most likely, but they reserve the right to make you write the statements over again if they think it's not your partner's own words.


----------



## CollegeGirl (Nov 10, 2012)

virginiap said:


> Does this apply to the online application as well? Because I have written in the boxes and they were all divided in those categories, so I am wondering whether I would have to attach another document.


Hey Virginia!  No, those boxes are meant to take the place of the statements people used to write. Some folks find there's not enough space in those and choose to write "see attached document" in those boxes (or something along those lines) and then attach a separate statement that answers questions about all four categories and the history of their relationship. Entirely up to you which way you want to do it, though.


----------



## monkeyyyy (Jun 5, 2014)

CollegeGirl said:


> Each person is supposed to write their statement in their own words. You're not supposed to write the statement for your partner. They're pretty explicit about that.
> 
> COs have even mentioned that they don't even want the person's partner making grammatical or style changes.. it's supposed to be the person's own words.


Hi CollegeGirl

Thanks for reminding me 

I didn't purely write the statement for my partner and let him sign on it, I only draft for him, and let him know what should include in this statement, he still need to go through what I wrote and change in his own words, because my man doesn't know what should write in it and he is quite busy at work, if I let him to do it by himself, it might take years to complete it, lol


----------



## Simply (Aug 21, 2014)

Mine is 4 pages typed 11 font. I started with a copy and paste of my 5 questions from 47SP and expanded it. I also used the checklist and filled in recommended documentation questions like knowledge of personal circumstances and emotional connections.


----------



## crolladx (Apr 4, 2014)

4 page is pretty good, why is my partner and myself around 7/8 pages + cover page stating whose statement it is, which covers the topics of;

*History of relationship
*Financial 
*Social
*Nature of household
*Future Plan

....would that mean, we type too much..we tried not to be too detail but majority are just from us key event and dates and with clear message explaining that's it...i think my one end up 8 page .... my partner 6 and half so 7 page to make it more easier.


----------



## CollegeGirl (Nov 10, 2012)

Nope, doesn't mean you wrote too much.  Some couples have longer statements than others. I would only be concerned if you had only written like a single paragraph, or had written 20 pages. lol. Anything between that and as long as you cover all your bases it's probably fine.


----------



## bigapplekanga (Jun 30, 2014)

We ending up writing a joint two page statement and both signed the bottom of each page, as opposed to both writing individual statements. Not advising you to do that, it's just what we did and they accepted it.


----------



## crolladx (Apr 4, 2014)

Haha, oh thats a relief to hear, im just glad we finally get a chance to start our application and now like wow didnt knew we wrote so much  thanks CG!

joint statement together? and still accept it? thats good! but i always thought they prefer we write separately. this is why one thing i dont like, its like there is no actual 100% answer to how to pass this partner visa. We follow the application document checklist provided from immi website. spoken to agents, got advise we can do this ourself since our situation is simple. i read some people here, dont have certain evidence, or lack in section and their passed, and some others missed those evidence and get refused... we just really confuse and doing our best to provide as much and hope it covers all the ground to support our relationship is genuine.


----------



## Simply (Aug 21, 2014)

Joint statement? I wrote mine and my partners is a simpler version of mine but in his own words. There is the woman's story (detailed) and the man's story (to the point) =P


----------



## Mish (Jan 13, 2013)

We had the relationship history as single statements and things like financial and household were joint since they would be exactly the same.


----------



## CollegeGirl (Nov 10, 2012)

They require separate statements from each of you in your own words. Glad Bigapplekanga's CO didn't make them redo theirs, but they could have.


----------



## Toddinaus (Sep 23, 2014)

Hey Guys, following on from all this, College Girl and Mish, specifically.

My partner and I are applying in about a weeks time. Before reading this post we were intending on doing a separate statement for the history of our relationship and a separate statement to aid in the Future Plans/ Nature of commitment section

BUT then we were planning to do joint statements for the financial, social and nature of household.. we agree with Mish that these three will be the same (or very similar) so didn't see the point BUT if immi explicitly want separate than I guess we shall. Any thoughts from anyone on the compulsory nature of seperate 5 statements?

History
financial
Nature of commit
social
nature of household


----------



## syd (May 13, 2014)

Toddinaus said:


> Hey Guys, following on from all this, College Girl and Mish, specifically.
> 
> My partner and I are applying in about a weeks time. Before reading this post we were intending on doing a separate statement for the history of our relationship and a separate statement to aid in the Future Plans/ Nature of commitment section
> 
> ...


My motto in regards to dealing with immigration "give them more than they require and never less." As a citizen of a 'high risk' country, I know they are unlikely to be lenient with me, so we wrote separate statements covering all aspects.


----------



## Mijita (Jul 22, 2014)

We did a single statement each covering all the aspects required by the Department. The reason for this was mainly because we wanted them to be stat decs and obviously stat decs can't be signed by two people.


----------



## GadoGadoGal (Nov 20, 2014)

My interpretation is that it is compulsory to have separate history of relationship statements, one from each the Applicant and Sponsor, that touch on the four categories. To that end, my partner and I did this and like Mijita we wrote them as statutory declarations and signed them before a JoP witness. We also wrote these more as the "story of us" with more sentiment and emotion, rather than merely dry factual statements.

However, because we already had several years behind us in our relationship and our life together has not been straightforward, we also wrote brief joint statements for each of the four categories that referenced the evidence documents we provided. These were the dry, factual statements. We both signed those statements, but did not have them witnessed. I don't think these additional statements are necessary for all relationships, especially if there are few years together, and your life together has been straightforward (i.e. always signed a lease together, have one joint bank account that you use for household expenses, etc.). We felt that for our situation we wanted to "guide" them through our relationship since it involved over 8 years together, living in 3 countries, switching off who was the breadwinner and which primary bank accounts we used, etc.. That is, there were some things that we'd rather make sure to explain to the reviewing case officers to make it easy to understand, rather than let them try to "connect the dots" which could leave them with questions, gaps or worse making incorrect assumptions. Also we were afraid that if we tried to do this between our individual history of relationship statements, then we might miss something or they would become highly edited and not really written by each us individually.


----------



## Antran_254 (Jun 25, 2015)

Hello everyone,

Im current preparing all the documents to apply onshore for partner visa and i have a trouble to write the relationship statement 
My partner's English skills are very poor. I'm just wondering whether he can write his part by our own language then have it translate or have to write it down in English???
Thanks guys


----------

