Partner Visa: Is getting legally married worth it just to strengthen the application?
Partner Visa (Australia): Is getting legally married worth it just to strengthen the application?
Hi everyone,
My girlfriend and I are planning to apply for an Australian Partner Visa, and a friend suggested that getting legally married first would strengthen our application.
Here's our situation:
We've been together for 3 years.
We first got together for about 6 months while she was studying in Australia.
We then did long distance for around 18 months, with plenty of evidence of visits and trips together during that time.
For the past 9 months we've been living together while she's been on a Working Holiday Visa.
We have a joint bank account, and we rented a place together from September to February.
My girlfriend thinks that getting married purely for visa purposes could look suspicious, and that we'd be better off relying on the genuine evidence we already have. I also don't really like the idea of trivialising our marriage just to improve our chances if it isn't necessary.
At the same time, I'd hate for our visa to be refused if getting married beforehand would have made a meaningful difference.
So my question is: How important is a marriage certificate for a Partner Visa? Is a genuine de facto relationship with strong supporting evidence generally enough, or does being legally married significantly strengthen the application?
TL;DR: Do we really need to get legally married before applying for an Australian Partner Visa, or is solid evidence of our genuine relationship enough?