K1 AOS with without shared accounts/assets/name change a problem for interview?

[bpg123 12]

Hey,

I'm from Canada and met my now USC wife 2 years ago. I recently filed AOS and although a long way off I am starting to think about the interview.

I am a semi-pro athlete, traveller and have an education but have yet to use it thus I have next to zero equity. My wife on the other hand is a CPA who has saved her entire life and has a strong net worth with a house fully paid off. 

She is very financially independent and prefers to keep all bank accounts and financial assets completely separate and we have a prenuptial agreement stating such. She is undecided whether she will change her name however it will not be done before the interview.

We dated for a year, we engaged for a year and are very clearly from an outside perspective a legit couple. We visited each other every months for the 2 years prior to marriage including myself staying with her for 4 months straight. We have taken trips together, honeymoon in Alaska and are best friends. 

 

Considering she has nothing to gain from the marriage outside of a partner and we have lots of photos/events showing we are a legitimate couple, is the financial separation going to cause any issues in proving a bonafide relationship?

Edited August 25, 2020 by bpg123

[Letspaintcookies 2,310]

Maybe you could create one shared bank account for household stuff. Each of you pays it's part to it and that's were you pay bills from.

 

But it's not a big big deal to have separated financials. Every couple has it's own way to do things. You can still have bills in both names for electricity and utility, Powers of Attorney, will's, family phone plan etc. 

[igoyougoduke 1,675]

1 hour ago, bpg123 said:

Hey,

I'm from Canada and met my now USC wife 2 years ago. I recently filed AOS and although a long way off I am starting to think about the interview.

I am a semi-pro athlete, traveller and have an education but have yet to use it thus I have next to zero equity. My wife on the other hand is a CPA who has saved her entire life and has a strong net worth with a house fully paid off. 

She is very financially independent and prefers to keep all bank accounts and financial assets completely separate and we have a prenuptial agreement stating such. She is undecided whether she will change her name however it will not be done before the interview.

We dated for a year, we engaged for a year and are very clearly from an outside perspective a legit couple. We visited each other every months for the 2 years prior to marriage including myself staying with her for 4 months straight. We have taken trips together, honeymoon in Alaska and are best friends. 

 

Considering she has nothing to gain from the marriage outside of a partner and we have lots of photos/events showing we are a legitimate couple, is the financial separation going to cause any issues in proving a bonafide relationship?

how do you pay rent and other common expenses without a joint account ?  do you do alternate months 

Edited August 25, 2020 by James120383

[Ayrton 965]

29 minutes ago, James120383 said:

how do you pay rent and other common expenses without a joint account ?  do you do alternate months 

Why is it required for both to pay the rent? Not every couple splits the bills 50/50. And OP said his wife has her own house.

 

1 hour ago, bpg123 said:

Hey,

I'm from Canada and met my now USC wife 2 years ago. I recently filed AOS and although a long way off I am starting to think about the interview.

I am a semi-pro athlete, traveller and have an education but have yet to use it thus I have next to zero equity. My wife on the other hand is a CPA who has saved her entire life and has a strong net worth with a house fully paid off. 

She is very financially independent and prefers to keep all bank accounts and financial assets completely separate and we have a prenuptial agreement stating such. She is undecided whether she will change her name however it will not be done before the interview.

We dated for a year, we engaged for a year and are very clearly from an outside perspective a legit couple. We visited each other every months for the 2 years prior to marriage including myself staying with her for 4 months straight. We have taken trips together, honeymoon in Alaska and are best friends. 

 

Considering she has nothing to gain from the marriage outside of a partner and we have lots of photos/events showing we are a legitimate couple, is the financial separation going to cause any issues in proving a bonafide relationship?

Every couple is different when it comes to money. You are not required to have joint account to pay for bills. You're gonna show what you have and explain why it's like that. Some couples are not even on the same health insurance, because it might be cheaper if each one enrolls for their own employment insurance.

 

I don't have a joint account with my husband, and I don't think it's necessary right now. He makes more money than I do. So most of the bills are on his account, groceries and other small stuff is on my account. And it works like that.

Edited August 25, 2020 by Ayrton

[igoyougoduke 1,675]

22 minutes ago, Ayrton said:

Why is it required for both to pay the rent? Not every couple splits the bills 50/50. And OP said his wife has her own house.

 

Every couple is different when it comes to money. You are not required to have joint account to pay for bills. You're gonna show what you have and explain why it's like that. Some couples are not even on the same health insurance, because it might be cheaper if each one enrolls for their own employment insurance.

 

I don't have a joint account with my husband, and I don't think it's necessary right now. He makes more money than I do. So most of the bills are on his account, groceries and other small stuff is on my account. And it works like that.

you can do however you want in your life  but it pretty straight away looks suspicious when it comes to immigration. 

[bpg123 12]

27 minutes ago, James120383 said:

you can do however you want in your life  but it pretty straight away looks suspicious when it comes to immigration. 

How so? I am unable to work presently while she has a high income. The house is paid off and she pays all the bills, I pay for all my personal expensive and we split the pet items. I paid for half the wedding and honeymoon but that has come from all my personal accounts. Once I am working I will contribute to all the bills but considering the backlogs I feel there is a good chance I will have my GC interview prior to having a work permit.  

Edited August 26, 2020 by bpg123

[maw0122 23]

@bpg123 you are not alone with how you and your wife prefer to handle your finances.  My husband and I have been discussing the exact same thing.  Growing up I have heard from many many many people to avoid joint financial accounts.  Try your best to always keep your money separate because you never know what will happen and that is the last thing you want tied up.  Now don't get me wrong I understand that looks like you should be planning for something bad or separation, but it isn't bad advice.  Additionally, I am a engineer with a stable good paying job, I purchased my house last year with my mother, and all my financials have been established for awhile.  My husband has a good career path as well but at this moment he can't work and if he paid for household bills it would just kill the savings he worked hard for.  So I pay for everything until he gets a job.  I am just not a person who would be okay with him killing all of his savings after he gave up so much to move to a new country for me.  But when he does get a job we plan on paying for all bills and the majority of big financial purchases 50/50.  But right now, especially during COVID and him not working, we aren't traveling and we aren't making big purchases.  

 

So we started to worry.  But at the moment we have decided to try and put him on the utility bills to establish that his permanent residence is the same residence I reside in.  He is also on my health insurance.  I am transferring him as my life insurance dependent.  And we are looking to open a bank account together.  (Also we are a Canadian/American couple and if you don't have an American TD account I highly recommend it.  It helps me seamlessly take money out of my American account in Canada for Canadian currency without any additional charges or conversion issues.  And we have been able to find branches in every location we travel to Canada and they are very popular where I am in America to.  And an American account has a much lower minimum balance requirement then the Canadian side).  This account would not be either one of our main financial accounts but we do plan on using it for vacations and maybe this is where we will pull our bill payments from in the future.  So I am not sure if any of those are good options for you but that is our game plan.  Hope it might help!