No Money - No Honey!

[JonasMichaels 0]

I am curious as to what is considered assets? Would my second car work? can I list that? It is a special edition, I don't drive it and it could be sold for a lot of cash. (However, it is not completely paid off yet, don't know if that makes a big difference)

Also, my dad just bought a $750,000 home, if he puts my name on the lease, would that count as an asset for me? Or no, because it isn't paid off yet?

I also have a friend who outright owns her home. Don't know if she would put my name on that or not but if she would, would that count? Is that hard for her to do for me?

I may be overthinking this but it seems with HCMC you can never be too prepared. My income was not good for a few years but this year will be fine, so as long as Phuong gets her interview in 2009, I am OK unless they start to care about the previous years income tax. I just want to be ready for anything.

Thanks guys

Jonas

[YuAndDan 153]

Assets need to be LIQUID, that is easily converted to cash, such as investments, IRA, money in the bank etc..

A home is not considered in many cases because the argument can be made, "Where would you live if you sold the home to pay for support?" As well as how fast can the home be sold for??

A Car also is a tricky asset, it needs to be appraised, and the appraisal value can be listed.

Assets are only valued at 1/3 income, so you need 3000 in assets to make up for 1000 short fall from the povertyline.

Many consulates will allow you to use a co-sponsor, the co-sponsor just needs an income at or above 125% povertyline when counting them self and the sponsored prospective immigrant as well as any dependents.

If your 2008 income picture looks good, then you may not need to use assets, or a co-sponsor.

One thing about I-134, the directions included with I-134 are very old, USCIS has no reason to update them since USCIS has no application for that form.

The consulates tend to treat the I-134 like a mini-I-864 as so prefer the same financial evidence as the I-864.

In our case this what the I-134 (FOR K-Visa) included.

• I-134 signed and notarized.

• SIMPLE Tax transcripts from the IRS for past 3 years, (Redundant for the (1040,W2,1099) but are free from the IRS http://www.irs.gov/faqs/faq1-6.html

• Photo copy of IRS form 1040, and W2s for past 3 years (Not necessary if you provide the transcripts)

• Letter from my employer stating annual salary, job responsibility, and that is full time, on company letterhead.

• Photo copies of past month or so of pay stubs up to a few weeks before the interview.

My income was well above the povertyline so I did not include any asset data (LIKE BANK STATEMENTS or property values).

[LuckyDucky 0]

Hello,

The minimum requirement is that you meet 125% of the poverty level in the US. (100% if you are military.) If you meet this requirement HCMC can not outright deny you for this. However, I would guess (just my opinion) that if you are very close to the level, you may come under more scrutiny because there may be concerned you were paid to bring Phuong over.

I believe the 2008 poverty guideline is $14,000 for 2 people (125% = $17,500) and more if you are in Alaska or Hawaii. (Ref: Health & Human Services 2008 Poverty Guideline

I'm not sure about your car or house, but I'm pretty sure anything that can be considered an asset would only be the portion that has been paid off. So if your dad put $100K down towards the $750K house, then the $100K would count towards it. If you can do it with your car then I would imagine that you can list whatever portion of it you own. (ie, if your car has a blue book value of $10,000 and you've paid half of the loan off, you can list $5000) However, just having assets that are over the current year's poverty guideline is not enough because that means you could only support for just that one year.

A lease is typically an agreement between the owner of the property and a tenant that allows the tenant use of the property. This is essentially renting the property. You do not own the property and so it's not an asset.

Your father and friend, however, could list you on their title. That makes you a partial owner of the property. There are different ways to list multiple people on titles, and I'm not an expert on any of it. However, I do recall on a talk radio show where an attorney had stated that someone on a deed could sell the property, even if the other parties did not wish to, and have the portions split. (At least in California. I'm sure it differs in every state.) So for someone to put you on their title requires quite a bit of faith.

Putting a name on title is, so far as I know, not too difficult, but there are fees associated with it. Hopefully more people on here would have more insight.

On my I-134, which is what we brought to the interview, I listed my current income at the time I filled out the form. (I'm not sure if this was correct, though.) However, for the adjustment of status (green card), we used the I-864. The I-864 requires last year's income, but you can voluntarily supply 2 additional years and I think they reserve the right to ask for that, too.

Hope this helps.

Edited August 21, 2008 by LuckyDucky

[LuckyDucky 0]

A note of clairification:

Regarding the I-134:

When listing a home, this would not go under the "I have personal property, the reasonable value of which is:" line, but would be filed under the "I own real estate valued at:" but again, I'm not sure what happens when multiple people own the property. Note that it also asks you for the mortgage on the property, so if you are on title with your dad on his house and he has a $650K mortgage, you still have to list it. It also asks you were the property is located and if you do not live at that address there's a good chance that will come up in the interview.

[Moto-zutto 0]

I am curious as to what is considered assets? Would my second car work? can I list that? It is a special edition, I don't drive it and it could be sold for a lot of cash. (However, it is not completely paid off yet, don't know if that makes a big difference)

Also, my dad just bought a $750,000 home, if he puts my name on the lease, would that count as an asset for me? Or no, because it isn't paid off yet?

I also have a friend who outright owns her home. Don't know if she would put my name on that or not but if she would, would that count? Is that hard for her to do for me?

I may be overthinking this but it seems with HCMC you can never be too prepared. My income was not good for a few years but this year will be fine, so as long as Phuong gets her interview in 2009, I am OK unless they start to care about the previous years income tax. I just want to be ready for anything.

Thanks guys

Jonas

Put your father down as a co-sponsor

[RalphandHanh 1]

I thought I would add a couple of things here. My fiancée went to the migration office in HCMC to have them help her fill out her paperwork. I had her ask a few things for me.

If she is your fiancée - you cannot have a co-sponsor. HCMC will not allow it if she is your fiancée, only if she is your spouse.

It is "recommended" that last year’s income be closer to $19,000. Above the poverty line may be less, but that is what she was told was “recommended”.

Assets must have the ability to be liquid within one year or less.

I’m going through something similar. I didn’t have a good year last year but this year will be great. And I’m praying that shortly before her interview, commercial property I have will have been sold. We are to settle in the next 30 days so I hope to have a significant amount of cash in the back before her interview. Tonight I’m calling the migration office for a little more information. And I will also be contacting the HCMC consulate as well as Mark Ellis to make sure that all the information that I’m receiving is correct. There are a lot of people offering great advice. However, much of what I see is conflicting. I want to Know for sure well in advance what we may expect.

[Ling Ling 22]

I thought I would add a couple of things here. My fiancée went to the migration office in HCMC to have them help her fill out her paperwork. I had her ask a few things for me.

If she is your fiancée - you cannot have a co-sponsor. HCMC will not allow it if she is your fiancée, only if she is your spouse.

It is "recommended" that last year’s income be closer to $19,000. Above the poverty line may be less, but that is what she was told was “recommended”.

Assets must have the ability to be liquid within one year or less.

I’m going through something similar. I didn’t have a good year last year but this year will be great. And I’m praying that shortly before her interview, commercial property I have will have been sold. We are to settle in the next 30 days so I hope to have a significant amount of cash in the back before her interview. Tonight I’m calling the migration office for a little more information. And I will also be contacting the HCMC consulate as well as Mark Ellis to make sure that all the information that I’m receiving is correct. There are a lot of people offering great advice. However, much of what I see is conflicting. I want to Know for sure well in advance what we may expect.

On an I-134 for a K-1 (non-binding support affidavit), you can not have a co-sponsor, but on an I-864 for a K-3 , AOS or CR-1 (binding support affidavit), you can have a co-sponsor. As for using your car as an asset...that might help some. First you have to have at least 2 cars (sounds like you do) and you can not use at least one of the cars. So if you had 3 cars, you could use 2 of them as assets. As for using the houses that you don't own as assets, that would be fraud, and could come to haunt you later on. Better that you stay on your path of trying to sell your commercial property...or if it has equity then show the appraised value and the mortgage due, the equity would be considered an asset at a 1 to 5 rate. So for every $5000 of equity, you would get $1000 of credit toward meeting the support guideline.

Actually, according to the 2008 instructions for I-1864 it's 1 to 5. Perhaps it's still 1 to 3 for an I-134.

Hope this helps some.

Good luck, and keep the faith.

[PeterFB 0]

I am curious as to what is considered assets? Would my second car work? can I list that? It is a special edition, I don't drive it and it could be sold for a lot of cash. (However, it is not completely paid off yet, don't know if that makes a big difference)

Also, my dad just bought a $750,000 home, if he puts my name on the lease, would that count as an asset for me? Or no, because it isn't paid off yet?

I also have a friend who outright owns her home. Don't know if she would put my name on that or not but if she would, would that count? Is that hard for her to do for me?

I may be overthinking this but it seems with HCMC you can never be too prepared. My income was not good for a few years but this year will be fine, so as long as Phuong gets her interview in 2009, I am OK unless they start to care about the previous years income tax. I just want to be ready for anything.

Thanks guys

Jonas

Jonas

Unless your Packet 3 instructions are different from the one Thi got in February of this year, the HCMC Consulate wants to see the current tax year transcript plus your complete tax return if you are self employed. You can submit more years if you want but it's not required. As long you have more than 125% of the current poverty level ($17,500 for 2008 until April 2009) as your gross income, you don't have to show any assets.

According to the Packet 3 instructions, you can have a co sponsor however the HCMC Consulate doesn't seem to like that or using assets to meet the poverty guidelines. If you try either of these, you could find yourself answering more questions via a blue slip. I wouldn't do this unless there's no other choice.

Good luck and update your time line!!

Peter and Thi

I-129F Sent : 2007-05-26

I-129F NOA1 : 2007-06-11

I-129F RFE(s) :

RFE Reply(s) :

I-129F NOA2 : 2007-10-26

Touched: 2007-11-02

NVC Recieved: 2007-11-16

Consulate recieved ??????

Packet 3 sent 2007-12-11

Packet 3 received 2007-12-24

Packet 3 returned 2007-12-28

Packet 4 sent 2008-1-14

Email Reply with Interview Date 2008-1-23

Interview Date 2008-2-27

Passed Interview 2008-02-27

Visa Pick Up Date 2008-3-05

Received Visa 2008-2-29 (called to pick up earlier)

POE 2008-3-05 Los Angeles

Wedding 2008-4-26