coops9999

Hello All,
I know you will all be shocked to hear that our trip to the DMV yesterday, to change my wife's name on her Driving Licence, was not a happy one!!!! I just want to know if anyone else has experienced this and what their next course of action was.........

My wife is a USC, we married in the UK September 2006, we moved to the US in November 2008..... Not long after arrival my wife went to the DMV to have her licence changed over to her married name, they said she needed to get her SSN changed over first then come back.... we went and got her SSN changed then things came up and we didn't get back to the DMV to complete the process.... Yesterday my wife had time to go and get it done so toddled off to the DMV with her SSN, previous licence and our UK Marriage Certificate..... There she was informed that DMV in North Carolina does not 'recognise' our UK Marriage Certificate and that we would need to bring them a 'North Carolina or US Marriage Licence' that is a direct quote.... My wife obviously questioned how our UK Marriage Certificate seemed to be good enough for the Federal Government to issue a change on her SSN but it is not good enough for them to change a Driving Licence but this fell on deaf ears....

What do you think our next course of action is..... should we try a different DMV or do we have to get married again in the US????!!!!!!!

Very confused by this whole situation and after reading a previous DMV post on here I guess we shouldn't have been suprised to encounter a problem but just don't know what to do next....

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.....

fatbrit

Call your state representative.

Ray

Secretary of Transportation
Gene Conti [email protected]

fatbrit

Other thoughts:

Try an apostille of your marriage certificate.
Do a simple name change with an NC court.

Norri

I'd try a different office if there is one.

You obviously had to deal with a numpty.

Rete

Did you ask to speak with a supervisor?

coops9999

Thanks for all your help guys..... I really wanted to sound out if the situation was as ridiculous as I thought it was...... It's a small town DMV so maybe aren't used to seeing International stuff, not sure if they even have a supervisor

I'll see if one of the other offices can help me out if not I will go through the representative.

Thanks again for all your help.

chartreuse

You seem to be taking it better than I did when I had DMV troubles, so well done for that.

My gut feeling is that Norri is correct, but don't entirely rule out the possibility that the prick at the DMV is not wrong. There's a small chance that they are correctly interpreting some obscure state law. I had a similar experience in Seattle, once, when a bouncer (friend of a friend) told me that my UK driving licence was not valid proof of age under WA law, but he'd let me off. I thought he was being a bit of a nob, until I checked the statute and found that, in fact, he was correct. Under WA law only US or Canadian drivers licenses are valid proof of age - people from other countries must present a passport. So there's a slim chance that your DW has fallen foul of a similar, badly worded, law.

My money is still on obstreperous, pointless, cnut, though.

lisag8070

Just found this on the NC DMV web-site, just scroll down to change of name and it'll list the requirements you need to take with you next time..

http://www.ncdot.org/dmv/driver_serv...alLicense.html

of course it mentions nothing about an overseas marriage license..sorry

meauxna

I think fatbrit got it right.. if you're an International, you'd need to do the name change through the court because your DMV will only accept a US marriage certificate.

A person whose name changes from the name stated on a driver license must notify the Division of the change within 60 days after the change occurs and obtain a duplicate driver license stating the new name. Name changes can be completed with your Social Security card (reflecting new name) along with:

* A marriage certificate issued by a U.S. governmental agency.
* Documented proof from the courts or the Register of Deeds establishing that the name change was officially accomplished
* Divorce decrees which include the name change.

Bob

I'd still try another office first before going through that effort...

crg

Some countries have very poor quality documents with no real security features. I'm not surprised that they don't accept foreign marriage certificates at the DMV.

Bob

because a US marriage/birth certificate and drivers license is so difficult to forge either....

crg

It's not merely a matter of detecting forgeries.

If one person had a marriage license from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and another had a marriage license from Bangkok, Thailand, which do you think would be easier to verify for a DMV in North Carolina?

I suspect it would be difficult to translate the document, let alone locate the phone number, contact person, or actually speak to someone at the office in Thailand.

Some counties in Pennsylvania will give you a copy of a marriage license for a buck.

fatbrit

But presumably NC is bound by the Hague Convention?

http://www.hcch.net/index_en.php?act...ns.text&cid=41