# Evidence of shared finances and expenses when applying for the partner visa 820



## sina1308 (Jul 31, 2013)

Hi everyone, 
I am going to apply for the partner visa (820) in Australia. 
According to the document checklist i will need to prove that my partner and I shared finances,as well as household bills and day-to-day living expenses (e.g.:grocery shopping). 
How exactly can I do this? 
We do have a joint bank account (for more than one year) and i have a document showing what day we opened it and one with the last current balance. 
We have a rental agreement and i collected the receipts from the grocery shopping. However, those receipts are faded, because they are so old. 
The thing is that none of this is showing that the money for our expenses was paid out of our account. 
So i was thinking about an account overview/statement for the entire year.The difficulty here is that, because we had the account for so long, this overview is pretty long (12 pages). We had this account while we were living in Germany so i will have to get the overview translated for the immigration.This will be very expensive due to the amount of pages. 
I was wondering if it is possible to create a summary or to shorten the overview to create an extract translation.That is to say to just pick the first and last month and a month in-between where all transactions are shown. 
Would this be accepted by the immigration? 
Do i necessarily need this account overview or is there another way of proving the shared finances and expenses? 
Any help would be very appreciated!


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## GadoGadoGal (Nov 20, 2014)

Hi sina1308,

Providing three or four representative joint account statements sounds good. Others on the forum have done the same, selecting statements showing expenses for things that clearly benefit both of you (e.g. rent payments, utility payments, groceries, travel), and the same from both of your individual accounts if those were used for joint expenses before you had the joint account. They've also printed these statements out, highlighted the relevant or most important transactions, and then scanned it to PDF. Matching a few receipts or boarding passes, etc to what are shown on the statements would make them more meaningful, I think, than a bunch of grocery receipts with no context. You could also include a written statement in prose explaining the financial aspects of your relationship that provide context for the evidence that you send. This could also allow you to explain some things that are difficult to show through evidence, for example a time when you might've needed to pay for things from an individual account rather than the joint account.

I did a quick search of the forum for 'financial evidence'. Several posts and threads came up where you can likely find great suggestions. Here is one: http://www.australiaforum.com/visas-immigration/99754-820-visa-married-2.html#post711217
Here is another in a blog (scroll down to the Financial Aspects section): Things We Included in Our Australian Partner Visa (820) | More Than One Page

On page 40 of the 1127 Partner Migration Booklet on the DIBP website they also provide a few examples. Joint expenses are one part of showing the financial aspects of the relationship, but DIBP considers others as well: http://www.immi.gov.au/allforms/pdf/1127.pdf

I hope this helps. I am sure senior members will provide further input and suggestions.


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## Mish (Jan 13, 2013)

What we did was provide the joint bank account. We didn't provide the receipts for anything as on the statement it showed where it was spent at ie. Woolies, Big W etc.

Other items you can also show is joint bills ie. Teltra, Electricity etc.

Also incase you aren't aware partner visa fees will be going up on 1 January 2015.


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## sina1308 (Jul 31, 2013)

Thank you so much for your help GadoGadoGal ! 
I had a look at your links and they are very useful. 
I appreciate your effort


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## sina1308 (Jul 31, 2013)

Also incase you aren't aware partner visa fees will be going up on 1 January 2015.[/QUOTE]

I already know this but thanks anyway  Its really a shame cause I am going to apply for the visa at the end of January and won't be able to make it any earlier. :/


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