Do I have enough i-751 evidence?

[cmhans 1]

My conditional residence (green card) expires September 29th and I'm just about to send off my i-751 petition and evidence. I feel very disorganized compared to some of the people on this forum. My husband and I have not been organized enough in storing financial documents etc. I'm worried I don't have enough evidence. I've listed below what I do have that I will be sending, and what I don't have and the reasons why I don't have those items. Can anyone offer advice and/or reassurance?

 

 

What I do have:

Affidavit from my parents;

Affidavit from a friend and neighbor of me and my husband;

Photos of my husband and I (but not many photos)

Copy of joint lease of apartment rented by Clare and Kyle Hanscom;

Bank statement from joint account shared by Clare and Kyle Hanscom;

Mail addressed to each of us at our shared address;

2017 tax filing documents;

Pay checks for each of us showing our shared address.

 

What I don't have (in my cover letter I explain why I do not include the following):

Joint credit card info (we don't have any credit cards);

Life insurance policies (we don't have life insurance);

Driver's licenses showing same address (I do not drive so I have no license);

Car insurance and car loan info naming both of us (both of these are in my husband's name only as I do not drive).

 

Also:

• We both have health insurance but have separate policies.
• I am trying to get hold of tax transcripts from 2016 and 2015 but I'm not sure if I will get them in time so we might be sending just the 2017 documents.

 

Thanks in advance for any advice/reassurance that people can give me.

[theanswerisdance 144]

2 minutes ago, cmhans said:

My conditional residence (green card) expires September 29th and I'm just about to send off my i-751 petition and evidence. I feel very disorganized compared to some of the people on this forum. My husband and I have not been organized enough in storing financial documents etc. I'm worried I don't have enough evidence. I've listed below what I do have that I will be sending, and what I don't have and the reasons why I don't have those items. Can anyone offer advice and/or reassurance?

 

 

What I do have:

 

Affidavit from my parents;

Affidavit from a friend and neighbor of me and my husband;

Photos of my husband and I (but not many photos)

Copy of joint lease of apartment rented by Clare and Kyle Hanscom;

Bank statement from joint account shared by Clare and Kyle Hanscom;

Mail addressed to each of us at our shared address;

2017 tax filing documents;

Pay checks for each of us showing our shared address.

 

 

What I don't have (in my cover letter I explain why I do not include the following):

Joint credit card info (we don't have any credit cards);

Life insurance policies (we don't have life insurance);

Driver's licenses showing same address (I do not drive so I have no license);

Car insurance and car loan info naming both of us (both of these are in my husband's name only as I do not drive).

 

Also:

• We both have health insurance but have separate policies.
• I am trying to get hold of tax transcripts from 2016 and 2015 but I'm not sure if I will get them in time so we might be sending just the 2017 documents.

 

Thanks in advance for any advice/reassurance that people can give me.

Is there a particular issue with getting those tax transcripts for previous years? Have you been trying to order them online? Those are a really valuable piece of evidence so definitely try to sort that out.

 

You have a joint apartment lease in both of your names; do you have previous years' leases as well, or does the lease you're providing span several years? If you renew your lease annually be sure to include all past ones too. They're looking for evidence that spans the entire duration of your marriage, not just the most recent stuff.

 

Do you have renter's insurance? Is it in both your names?

 

You mentioned bank statement, singular, but again, they're looking to see continued co-mingling. Some people include one statement from every 3 months of their marriage, or you could play it safe and include every month's statement. But definitely include more than one, and make sure they span your marriage.

 

How about utility bills? Are those joint? Even if not joint, if there are some bills in just your name and some in just his then you can include both to show that you're each responsible for shared expenses, and they'll see the same address on both.  

 

If you don't have wills yet, I might suggest drawing up simple ones naming each other as beneficiary. If you don't have a lot of assets, property, or children, it doesn't have to be anything complicated, and you can use an inexpensive software program to do it. They like to see wills and powers of attorney. 

 

If you've taken any vacations together since being married and have copies of the hotel bills with both your names on them, boarding passes showing you both on the same flights, etc. you can include those as well.

 

Hope that gives you some stuff to work with!

[cmhans 1]

Thank you for the detailed suggestions!

• Tax transcripts: Yes I'm trying to order them online.
• Apt lease: We have renewed every six months since we moved in just over two years ago. The management changed during that time. We should be able to get at least the previous lease from the new management and hopefully I can find our own copies of the earlier leases from the previous management (but as I mentioned, we have not been as organized with filing documents as we should have been so I am not sure if I can find them).
• Bank statements: On your recommendation, we will go and get previous statements from our bank. We have had the account since May 2015 so we can show evidence of having had the joint account throughout the past 2+ years. (We got married in October 2014 but I didn't have a SSN until about February 2015... at that time (Feb 2015) we lived in Indiana and we knew we would be moving to Colorado in May 2015 so we just waited until we moved to open a joint account).
• Utility bills - our rent includes utilities so no separate bills. Car payments and TV/internet are both in my husband's name.
• Wills - no we don't have wills yet. If we each draw one up on a website that offers free will-making, do you think that is satisfactory? We don't have the money to go to a lawyer and do it right now.
• Vacations - we have just taken a couple of road trips together since we got married and hotel rooms were just booked in one of our names.

Also do you think it matters that we only have a few photos to send (we just don't take a lot of photos). We have photos from our wedding and photos from when my parents visited last year. Should we just take some more photos of us now and include them?

• Thanks again for your advice.

 

Edited August 16, 2017 by cmhans

[Scandi 4,186]

It doesn't have to be a drivers license, could be a regular state ID that shows your address.

[Going through 5,671]

Any receipts from donations made in both of your names?