Spouse visa – Is ‘love’ a factor to determine the relationship

Background

Our client comes from the Philippines, arrived in Australia under a visitor visa, met her partner who is an Australian citizen. He wanted to sponsor our client to remain in Australia under a subclass 820/801 partner visa.
The immigration office has refused the visa as they were not satisfied with the genuineness of our client’s relationship.

Our involvement

We meticulously planned the case and appealed the matter to the AAT with the ‘missing puzzles’ of evidence to facilitate the claim. We used the High Court’s decision precedent to maintain our argument that our client relationship was genuine and unpretentious. For this, the AAT ruled that our client met the criteria for a de facto relationship.