Please help-physical addresses vs permanent address

[AthruZ 0]

Hello VJ,

We are at a loss on how to proceed. Hoping to get advice. Thank you in advance for your time.

 

We are in the process of responding to an rfe for more general proof of bona fide marriage. We are gathering the documents but here is our confusion.

 

Our permanent and legal address that we use has been at my parents and that is what we used when submitting our applications. And that us where everything is registered to. We have also rented a large room in a private house some time back just for more privacy but we still also stay with my parents most weekends and other days. We also maintain a room there. Now that we are gathering documents, and affidavits we thought it would be a good idea to get an affidavit from the home owner where we rent as they can attest to us living together as a married couple and can also explain our rental agreement. This has actually caused us to wonder about the address since we did not list this address because if 2 reasons: 

 

1.We still go and stay at our permanent address where parents reside most weekends and  other days. Also, we did not want mail coming here and risk losing it as there are other people that reside in the home.

 

2.We never intended to stay here for a long time but due to financial reasons we have not moved out to another permanent home of our own. To add more confusion, the USCIS website it states that as long as you are maintaining your permanent address and still receiving mail there you do not need to report temporary address. Since it has been more than a year with this living situation. We were not sure how to handle this. 

 

I see some posts that state an AR11 form to change address should have been filed  but the instructions are confusing on the USCIS website based on their permanent vs temporary instructions.

 

We want to report accurately and do not want to cause confusion and questioning let alone issues with not following rules. As I mentioned both the home owner and parents are willing to write affidavits. In this situation should we have to file a change of address to show the rental address?or is it not required because we still maintain our other permanent address and still stay there too? We are thinking to make an info pass appointment to get clarification.

[sddude89 31]

In order to give you proper advice, can you copy here the complete text of the RFE?

 

There are several ways to look at your living situation but when it comes to RFEs it is best to reply with exactly what they are asking for. Nothing less nothing more. RFEs are usually somewhat specific. 

 

What does exactly the RFE say?

[sddude89 31]

Also, if not much to ask, can you provide a list of the documents you provided as bona fide with your original submission?

[AthruZ 0]

Thank you for your response.The rfe is not mentioning anything about the address. It is a general rfe asking for more proof of bona fide marriage and it goes on to give examples such as joint bank accounts, insurance, wills, joint lease, mortgage, affidavits etc. We have already submitted most of these documents but just don't have all of it. The address issue is a whole other issue that arose when we were thinking about sending affidavits. Our landlord is willing to write one to say how much rent we pay and what rent covers, however by doing this the question of having another address will come up and may cause confusion and questioning. We want to be truthful of course but also don't want to cause unnecessary complications if it is not really an issue .

[sddude89 31]

I don't think there is anything confusing about your living situation.

If you spend 4 days or more of the week at your rented room, then that is your Physical Address.

You can list your parent's house as your Mailing Address.

 

If you have a rental agreement with the landlord then an affidavit is unnecessary. (Rental Agreement should show property address and both of your names and the rent amount). Copy of rent checks coming from your joint banking account would be nice to have and submit as evidence.

 

You can also explain in the cover letter that your current physical address is the rented room and your mailing address is actually your parents home. Nothing wrong with that.

Edited December 26, 2017 by sddude89

[AthruZ 0]

Thanks for your reply. 

Since we have no lease or formal rental agreement with our rental and the rent covers all utilities, that the owner has requested we pay in cash, we wanted to provide some kind of affidavit from the home owner to state this. Since they also know us well the affidavit would also help with knowing that we are a bonafide couple.  I am guessing that the reason we received an rfe is because we don't have a lot of financial commingling largely due to the fact that our utilities are included with our rent and by the homeowner writing the affidavit it would explain that.

 

I agree. The address should not be an issue but since the rental address was never listed, didn't want to cause confusion.