# 820 Granted in 5 months - A list of our evidence!



## Engaus (Nov 7, 2013)

My partner and I recently received our 820 visa in just under 5 months. I know that when we started trawling through these forums about a year ago it was so difficult to work out just how much "evidence" was enough. Gradually we pieced things together as we read and re read people's posts on forums about what evidence they supplied. So I thought it might be helpful to others if I provided some details on this with our application.

*Our background*

•	We are both 25, my partner is from the UK and I am Australian (by birth)
•	We have known each other for 9 years, and had been in a "defacto relationship" i.e. living together for 16 months at time of application
•	We did not use an agent, although we received a lot of valuable information from the ones that frequent this site
•	Out of those 16 months we had been together, 12months we had been living with my parents in Melbourne, so had no lease for this time
•	The other four months we had a joint lease from our London share house
•	We had no joint bank account, no joint utility bills and no joint assets - so we weren't particularly strong in the financial evidence
•	We submitted a decision ready application (which means that we included our police checks + medical upfront)
•	We did not supply nor were we asked for Form 80 (my partner did upload his law degree though in the hope that it would go some way of proving good character).
•	Neither of us had any dependents
•	We had no criminal records
•	We applied online

*Evidence*

*1)	Financial*
a)	We provided 16 months worth of bank statements - 16 months from my personal account and 16 months from my partner's personal account. We went through these and highlighted any and every expense where both of us had been involved. This included, meals, cinema dates, groceries, petrol, holidays + weekends away - we referenced these on the accounts and supplied a receipt where possible. We also highlighted all of the transfers between mine and my partner's account (there was a few a month).
b)	My partner and I paid a small amount to my parents each week. My partner would transfer this to my account and I would add my half and then transfer it to my parents account each week. We highlighted these transactions on our statements and provided a statement from my parents advising that they were allowing us to live rent free and had only asked for money towards groceries (this statement included information on how long we had lived with them, that we had our own room + bathroom, that we cooked 3-4 times a week and would go out for meals on the weekend, along with some information on our day to day routine (my partner dropping me off at the train station for work each morning and picking me up etc)).

*2)	Nature of Household*
a)	Within our partner statements we provided details on the nature of our household whilst in London and when we came to live in Melbourne. Information on who did what in the house e.g cooking, washing, cleaning. Whilst in London my partner was without a job for most of the time so we provided information on how my income had been the only one we had lived off.
b)	We had no joint utility accounts as this was included in the rent whilst we were in London, and whilst I lived with my parents the billed remained in their name. Within the partner statement we included these details so that they could understand why these had not been supplied.
c)	We provided lots of correspondence addressed to me or my partner coming to the same address, but only a few official items. We had our bank statements + tax returns, other than that we had kept receipts for gifts we have bought for each other that came to our address and other online purchases.

*3)	Social*
a)	We provided our Facebook.com/us page - this showed our mutual Facebook friends, photos that we had been tagged in together, places we had been tagged in together and our anniversary date.
b)	We provided about 20 photos - this was a mixture of photos of just us, us with friends or us with each other's family (this included a picture of a picture that my partners parents have hanging on their wall in their home of all of us together at a wedding - why not?).
c)	We had 1 joint engagement invite and another wedding invite
d)	We had a joint Flybuys account, a joint Nandos account, a joint Pharmacy account and a joint cinema account. We provided evidence of this.
e)	We had Form 888's from my brother, mother, father, mutual friend (so 4 in total), we also then had statements from my partners mother, father and sister.
f)	We had receipt from weekends away together, accommodation on holidays, activities whilst on holidays along with about 4 flight itineraries over the past 12 months including our flight to Australia together
g)	We had a joint Ambulance membership together
h)	We submitted a few birthday and Christmas cards - ones to each other + ones from each other's family to us as a couple. We also included some anniversary cards we had given each other
i)	We submitted a few screen shots of emails + texts we had sent to each other which included info on some decision we made as a couple e.g us talking about buying land together, us emailing each other when we were trying to find a place to rent in London together
j)	Receipt of items we had shipped to Australia together

*4)	Nature of Commitment to each other*
a)	We provided evidence that we had been to see an estate about purchasing land together in the next 12 months. There was information about a certain land block we had look at, it's cost and the deposit required to purchase the block
b)	We had wills - we are both young so had little to our names but we still went and got these. I simply downloaded a copy of a will online and amended it to suit my situation. It included information on what I would want to happen to our children (when we eventually have them), information on how I wanted my partner to be my beneficiary that I wanted to be buried in a plot next to him etc. It's all a bit morbid but it's very good evidence - and it's free! See below for the will that I based ours on
https://online.slatergordon.com.au/sgo/uploadedFiles/eCommLegal_Web_Site/Wills/Sample Will.pdf
c)	We had each other listed as beneficiaries on our superannuation 
d)	Within our partner statements we also provided information on how we saw our relationship in 5 years time, e.g. purchasing a house, getting married and thinking about starting a family.

I want to finish by thanking everyone for their help! There are some amazing people on this site that give up their free time to help others (Mark, Adam, CollegeGirl, StarHunter, Mish to name a few). When I was feeling like my head was about to explode I could always come here and be surrounded by wonderful people in the same situation as I was (dammed if I could get any of my friends to understand what I was going through).

Good luck to everyone still waiting, and others reading this post looking to begin the process!
Steph


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## CollegeGirl (Nov 10, 2012)

Steph! What a great and comprehensive post.  Sounds like you guys really submitted some fabulous evidence - I'm glad others in the future will have this refer to as it really is quite wonderful! Congrats again.


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## kaga (Jul 28, 2013)

First of all congrats 
And thank you very much Steph for the details which i believe would help a lot of people here to file a proper application. 

Wish you very good luck for the future.


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## Star Hunter (Jun 29, 2012)

First off, congratulations! 

Secondly, fabulous post! Your evidence was really comprehensive and also had some great examples of less than obvious evidence for those who might struggle with finding the typical evidence. Loved it xxxx


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## lildevil872 (Dec 24, 2010)

wow congrats. your checklist gave me more ideas for my own application. Are you able to tell me which site did you copy the will from? would be great if you could either PM me or post it here. Other than than Congrats once again and great job very comprehensive list indeed


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## Engaus (Nov 7, 2013)

Thanks all! We are very happy after settling ourselves in for an 18 month wait!

This is the will that my partner and I used. I just copied and pasted it into a word document and removed what I didn't want (or wasn't relevant to me) and added things in to personalise it.

https://online.slatergordon.com.au/sgo/uploadedFiles/eCommLegal_Web_Site/Wills/Sample Will.pdf


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## Bay56 (May 2, 2014)

Congrats 

Btw, I thought form 80 was compulsory for partner visas?


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## rani (Aug 8, 2013)

Thanks for a great post Steph


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## lildevil872 (Dec 24, 2010)

Steph thank you for the link


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## Engaus (Nov 7, 2013)

Bay56 said:


> Congrats
> 
> Btw, I thought form 80 was compulsory for partner visas?


It certainly depends on where you are applying. I know it's getting more and more common for low risk countries to be asked which is why I thought I'd note that we didn't have to supply one. Seems that it's not compulsory but people include it to prevent delays given it takes so long to fill out. In saying that perhaps they thought supplying my partners law degree was helpful? (he can't get in any sort of trouble otherwise he would have issues practicing as a solicitor)


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## peachtart (Apr 18, 2014)

First of all, congratulation on the approval. Always good to hear people getting their approvals. 

I am in the midst of preparing extra documents to be submitted for the same visa type and have some questions regarding the statements from your partner's family. 

Do they fill in the form 888 as well? Or they just write a statement on a plain paper? Is there a need for their statement to be witnessed / certified by the notary public?


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## Engaus (Nov 7, 2013)

Thank you peachart  

My partners family just wrote their statements on a plain bit of paper, they then got it sighed by a notary public.

Best of luck with your application!


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## hessbag (Nov 7, 2012)

Congratulations and thank you so much. I am putting together all our evidence and we are pretty weak in the financial area too. This post makes me feel more confident! Good luck with your futures together. And Thanks for the links to the wills too.


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## peachtart (Apr 18, 2014)

Thanks Engaus! I'm going to get a statement done by our friend in Singapore today. I was really stressed out by the format and all that because my 888's were rejected because they were outdated (was using last year's and they updated the form in March). 

My partner and I are taking it positive that it's our chance to submit more docs as we are pretty weak on the requirements of having lived at least 12 months together so these statements from Aussies and non-Aussies are our best bet. 

Once again, congrats!!!


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## lady2014 (Jun 12, 2014)

Hi Engaus 

Congratulation and very happy for you. Anyway is all your documents sent/ attach via online as well? Like the evidences does it need to be original and sent to the embassy via post? Or just everything scanned and attached/sent online. Your response would be a big help.


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## lildevil872 (Dec 24, 2010)

lady2014 said:


> Hi Engaus
> 
> Congratulation and very happy for you. Anyway is all your documents sent/ attach via online as well? Like the evidences does it need to be original and sent to the embassy via post? Or just everything scanned and attached/sent online. Your response would be a big help.


If you apply online everything is just scanned in colour and uploaded online. Makes life easier


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## evie_p (Jan 13, 2015)

thank you so much for posting this! I can't begin to tell you how much this helps with the headaches!


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## virginiap (Nov 21, 2014)

Congratulations, it seems like you have done a great job! Your post is really helpful.
How did you upload all the pictures in one go? Because I am putting them all in a Word document, so I can add a caption, but I am unsure whether they would accept that sort of format.


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## Engaus (Nov 7, 2013)

virginiap said:


> Congratulations, it seems like you have done a great job! Your post is really helpful.
> How did you upload all the pictures in one go? Because I am putting them all in a Word document, so I can add a caption, but I am unsure whether they would accept that sort of format.


I also put them in a word document and had captions for each of the photos. I then PDF'd the word document and uploaded it


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## virginiap (Nov 21, 2014)

Perfect! And are screen shots of bank statements, or facebook posts and bills ok? I can't seem to download my bank statements as PDF for some reasons, so had to screen shot and high light with PDF, so hope they will accept it.


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## Mish (Jan 13, 2013)

I highly doubt they would accept screen shots of bills and bank statements.

You can contact the bank to reissue them. Try using another computer to download the statements.


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## CollegeGirl (Nov 10, 2012)

Or print them out, highlight whatever you want to highlight, then scan them. That's what we did.


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## Engaus (Nov 7, 2013)

We did two things.

My bank didn't have the statememnts available online for as far back as I needed them. So I went into my closest branch and they posted them out to be a week later, no fee.

My partner was with NAB and had all the statements available to him online. So he printed them all out and made notes on them - e.g to show joint purchases and transfers and then scanned them back onto the computer.

I didn't want to make too many alternations because I was worried they would think I had fiddled with the document electronically too much lol. This is why we printed them and made hand written notes on them, given they were not proper bank statements as it is (they were just statement overviews technically).


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## 530i (Jul 29, 2014)

this makes me confident in our application


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## evie_p (Jan 13, 2015)

*Stupid Question*

Hey guys,

This maybe the most ridiculous question, but I am going to ask it anyway. 

Everywhere on this forum I see people saying 'we explained why we weren't paying rent...' etc etc

My question is, where do you write these notes? I want to make my application as easy as possible for immi to navigate. Do I hand write a note on my evidence or do you include it in your history of relationship stat dec?

Thanks!


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## starlight (Mar 29, 2014)

I think most people just include this information in their relationship statements


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## ernest1 (Nov 25, 2014)

evie_p said:


> Hey guys,
> 
> This maybe the most ridiculous question, but I am going to ask it anyway.
> 
> ...


I made a statement for each aspects for my application. Example, We had a joint lease but we were paying our rent cash to landlord.And I explained it all in my nature of household statement and get a letter from my landlord.

I didn't get grant yet as I applied about a month ago but i think it works in these way or if you mention about it in your history of relationship.


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## Engaus (Nov 7, 2013)

evie_p said:


> Hey guys,
> 
> This maybe the most ridiculous question, but I am going to ask it anyway.
> 
> ...


Absolutely, just include everything in your relationship statement. My statement was several pages long because it ended up including a lot more than just the history of a relationship (5-6 for memory).


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## virginiap (Nov 21, 2014)

What if we wrote those details in those statement boxes within the online application? Is that still ok, or do we have to physically write one on a piece of paper? 
Thanks


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## CollegeGirl (Nov 10, 2012)

virginiap said:


> What if we wrote those details in those statement boxes within the online application? Is that still ok, or do we have to physically write one on a piece of paper?
> Thanks


That's totally fine - that's what we did - just keep in mind there's a limit in those boxes of 2000 characters.


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## barefoot (Nov 24, 2014)

Engaus said:


> •	We submitted a decision ready application (which means that we included our police checks + medical upfront)
> We had Form 888's from my brother, mother, father, mutual friend (so 4 in total), we also then had statements from my partners mother, father and sister.


Hey just a quick question. My partner and I are in a similar situation to you, he's from the UK, I'm Australian. We've been together for 2 years, living together for almost all of that time, and we're just in the process of getting our application ready to be submitted onshore and online in mid-March.
Now, my question is, you had statements from his parents in the UK, but I think I read somewhere that you had them authorised/signed by a notary public. Why is that? Do they usually charge for this? I'm just trying to get the information to them so they know what they have to do.

Also, your application was obviously improved in record time (in my opinion), but I've heard that it isn't wise to get the medical done upfront. We've already had the police check done in the UK, but we weren't sure about the medical (which obviously you have to do in Australia). We're happy to get it done before we apply, but I don't want to have to get it done twice. We're not anticipating any issues, as my partner is only 25, so I guess that works in his favour as well.

Would love any tips/ideas you might be able to provide.


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## Engaus (Nov 7, 2013)

Hiya, 
My partners parents did a statement - people get them witnessed so that they hold more weight. In the end ours was just signed by my partners parents and was not witnessed. Have a read of the form 888, it provides information on there for people wanting overseas statements from non Australians/PR

I applied about a year ago now when processing times were about 12 months. They have now blown out to up to 15 months. So when I applied there was a smaller risk of having to do our medicals and police checks again. If I was to apply today I would be waiting until I was a few months into my application before I got them done. 

Hope that helps


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## martin12345 (May 31, 2015)

Hi there EngAus!

I am currently in a similar position as to the one you were in! currently applying for onshore 820 partner visa, from the current partner visa which i hold currently.

I have a list of evidence which is similar to yours, which bodes promising!

I was just thinking how exactly did you show evidence for joint Flybys, Nandos account etc.. As my partner and I also share these accounts, however I am unsure as to how to provide sufficient evidence for these.

A response would be of a great help 
Martin


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## Rimmel (Jan 25, 2015)

martin12345 said:


> Hi there EngAus!
> 
> I was just thinking how exactly did you show evidence for joint Flybys, Nandos account etc.. As my partner and I also share these accounts, however I am unsure as to how to provide sufficient evidence for these.
> 
> ...


Awesome point! My partner and I have Flybys account as well, but we have separate cards! is it same for you? or you have same card with both your and your partners name on it?


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## Mish (Jan 13, 2013)

Flybuys you can take a screenshot of the account when you login online and it will show both names.

Nandos is a bit harder since you can use the app instead of cards. Therefore in that case I suggest attaching a copy of a couple of the monthly statements showing that you use both cards (we do that too so we both get free birthday meals hehe).


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