help with change of address

[Constantine1234 1]

i really need your help with this. i just got my temporary green card last month. me and my wife are planning to move to my aunt's place coz she's offering us one of her rooms for free. and who doesn't want that? anyway, she said we can just help with the bills and i'm fine with that. my questions is, how are we gonna prove during the removal of conditions, that we are not paying anything? will that affect my application just because we can't provide any evidence of lease or something? i hope you can help us with this. thank you so much!

[Inky 1,111]

You most certainly can provide lease, all you do is have the aunt write one stating you are living in a room and paying utilities or whatever your agreement is.

Pretty simple actually, lots of people do this.

[jjbandero 39]

I would recommend that you draw up a lease with your aunt anyway, which specifically state that she is the owner of the property you will be staying at, and she has offered for you pay partially the utilities and other expenses in lieu of rent. Put both your name and your wife's name on the agreement and state from which date this arrangement will start. As for additional proof, you might want to set it up so either you 1) pay 100% of some bills (spell out which ones) so you can later match it to your account to show that you paid them per your arrangement; or 2) you can state in the agreement that you will pay a % of all bills, in which case you could write a cheque to your aunt each month or whenever the bills are due. I would suggest perhaps use method 1) would be easier, for example, you will pay the electricity and gas bills that total $150 in the first month, you can show that you paid both bills through your bank statement for that amount. You may not want to pay your aunt in cash unless she is willing to give you receipts.

I'm sure more experienced members will chime in with more information.

Cheers

[Constantine1234 1]

thanks for your reply.i appreciate it. it's ok? even if the utilities are not on our names?

[Constantine1234 1]

nice! thank you so much jjbandero for your time! option number 1 is fine..so we're gonna make an agreement about that.do we need to have it notarized? and one more thing, does my aunt need to declare or file to a specific department for this? or is this even considered as a business?

[jjbandero 39]

Yes it should be fine, since it's your aunt's place it makes sense that the utilities are in her name. However you want to set up the lease, just make sure there's an easy way for you to trace the paperwork to show that you contributed per your agreement.

[Constantine1234 1]

is is still called "lease contract"? and bank statements are the best proof that i am contributing to the agreement right?

[jjbandero 39]

Not that I'm aware re. declaration, you can just Google lease and your state to get some examples specific to your state an just alter it to suit your arrangements. It's important that you use the one state in case there are special requirements.

Good luck

[jjbandero 39]

I don't know if bank statements are the "best", I just thought it would be easy to get (the bank produces them for you automatically), you're likely to submit a bunch of them to show co-mingling of financial assets anyway (if you add your wife to the account) and it's produced by a third party

[Constantine1234 1]

hope you can still read this post..does my aunt need to declare to a certain government office or department that they are letting one of the rooms be rented? will it affect their income tax?

[AmberOctober 25]

When we lived with my in-laws they claimed us as dependents in their tax forms and got a return.

Edit: but then, we both didn't have jobs at the time.

Edited January 2, 2012 by AmberOctober