Each joining spouse and unmarried child under 21 must be considered in the initial application, and each adds a separate US$15,000 processing fee and a separate US$1 million gift. Where household assets are held in different names or jurisdictions, the reconciliation should explain the whole picture rather than only the principal's own accounts.
Map ownership across the household
List which family member legally holds each account, property, or company interest, including anything held jointly or through a trustee. Internationally mobile families often accumulate arrangements that made sense in one country and look unusual from outside it. Writing the ownership map down lets counsel decide what needs explaining and what is simply background.
Do this before the application is started, since joining relatives have to be considered from the beginning. Add one further question to that ownership map: whether any arrangement in it would need to be unwound or reported, and on what timetable. Structures assembled over years in different countries can carry obligations that follow a person into a new residence, and those are questions for qualified tax and legal advisers in the relevant places rather than something to resolve within the immigration file.
Identify them now so that advice can be sought while there is still time to act on it. Hypothetical example: a household's ownership map includes an interest held through a trustee in a third country, and identifying it early allows advisers in two jurisdictions to be instructed in parallel rather than sequentially once a deadline is already close.