Witness letters

[Zoe12 5]

Do friends and family who write witness letters to attest to our marriage have to see us after marriage, or is it fine if we have not seen each other in awhile?

[dentsflogged 352]

16 hours ago, Zu11 said:

Do friends and family who write witness letters to attest to our marriage have to see us after marriage, or is it fine if we have not seen each other in awhile?

If you are applying for adjustment of status, then it means both parties are in the USA.

 

If both parties are in the US, you'll be hard pressed to present proof of being in a genuine relationship if you haven't seen each other "in a while"

 

So end result - they won't hold much, if any, weight. What holds weight is proof of being physically together, sharing a life/home/finances, unless you've got excellent, independently verifiable (ie: not relying on testimony from friends or family), documented reasons for not being physically together during the time between marrying and filing/interview.

[Zoe12 5]

2 minutes ago, dentsflogged said:

If you are applying for adjustment of status, then it means both parties are in the USA.

 

If both parties are in the US, you'll be hard pressed to present proof of being in a genuine relationship if you haven't seen each other "in a while"

 

So end result - they won't hold much, if any, weight. What holds weight is proof of being physically together, sharing a life/home/finances, unless you've got excellent, independently verifiable (ie: not relying on testimony from friends or family), documented reasons for not being physically together during the time between marrying and filing/interview.

I have a ton of proof of 9 years together but the lawyer told us to get 3 witness letters. We asked family and friends, some of them have not seen us after marriage but we have talked a lot on Facetime etc. Would that be pointless?

[dentsflogged 352]

1 hour ago, Zu11 said:

I have a ton of proof of 9 years together but the lawyer told us to get 3 witness letters. We asked family and friends, some of them have not seen us after marriage but we have talked a lot on Facetime etc. Would that be pointless?

Not pointless but far more weight will be given to proof of an ongoing life together, such as mentioned above - proof of shared abode, proof of ongoing mingled finances - bank accounts, insurance, joint property ownership and so on.   

Or do you mean just generic letters from friends who know you that you haven't seen personally as a couple since the wedding? 

Either way - witness letters are secondary (at BEST) evidence.  They're meant to be a legally binding statement, but TBH most people wouldn't flinch at writing a letter saying "yes, they're a genuine couple, very in love blah blah blah" if asked by a friend who may or may not know the truth. I did exactly that for friends of mine (which IS a requirement for an Australian partner visa) only to find out that they were both miserable and on the verge of breaking up even as they were gathering evidence for her visa. No people ever truly know another couple, therefore "hard" evidence is better than subjective stuff like people saying "oh, they're a nice couple"

[Zoe12 5]

5 minutes ago, dentsflogged said:

Not pointless but far more weight will be given to proof of an ongoing life together, such as mentioned above - proof of shared abode, proof of ongoing mingled finances - bank accounts, insurance, joint property ownership and so on.   

Or do you mean just generic letters from friends who know you that you haven't seen personally as a couple since the wedding? 

Either way - witness letters are secondary (at BEST) evidence.  They're meant to be a legally binding statement, but TBH most people wouldn't flinch at writing a letter saying "yes, they're a genuine couple, very in love blah blah blah" if asked by a friend who may or may not know the truth. I did exactly that for friends of mine (which IS a requirement for an Australian partner visa) only to find out that they were both miserable and on the verge of breaking up even as they were gathering evidence for her visa. No people ever truly know another couple, therefore "hard" evidence is better than subjective stuff like people saying "oh, they're a nice couple"

Yes, just letters from family and friend who have not seen us since the wedding but have known us as a couple for a decade. The lawyers just wanted us to get those to add strength to our application even thought we have good evidence already. However, we are quite young and don‘t have joint property and bank accounts. We will get a joint bank account soon. We get joint insurance after we apply so that won‘t be included at first. I hope that will be fine