plvbrazil

Hello everyone,

I'm going on holiday to the UK for a month with my expat British wife. We currently live in Brazil. Our plan is to someday go to England and live there, but as everyone knows coming home with a spouse is now nearly impossible for a UK national unless they have some money saved over and/or a very good salary as an expat. We're finding our ways to do that, but it will probably take some time.

I would like to know if it would make sense to get some paperwork done for the future once I'm there. For example, in order to get married in Brazil, I had to legalise my wife's birth certificate in the Brazilian consulate in London, ship it to Brazil, translate it and then authenticate the translation here - all before going to the registry office. That took us longer than actually getting married.

I'm wondering if there's any benefit in doing the same now in the UK for other documents. In other words, since I'll be in the UK, would it make sense for example to authenticate my marriage certificate there? Or maybe my university and MSc degree? (I'm also trying to get a work visa).

Any thoughts will be much appreciated

Thank you and Merry Xmas!
Phil

SanDiegogirl

Your Brazilian marriage is recognized and considered legal in the UK.

Therefore not sure what you mean by authenticating your marriage certificate in the UK as there is no registration to go through.

However, it would help if those documents you will need to present for the spouse visa, if in Portuguese or Spanish, be translated into English ready for the application.

BritInParis

https://www.gov.uk/deposit-foreign-marriage

I would hurry, the service is being cancelled on 1 January 2014.

SanDiegogirl

...... bur the poster is not resident in the UK?

BritInParis

Obviously depends if they're staying with relatives or have another UK address they can use but this is the service they are looking for.

plvbrazil

Hello,

Thanks for the replies

This page that BritInParis sent is exactly what I was looking for. But what is going to happen after Jan 1 2014? I can just show them my marriage certificate in Brazilian Portuguese and then I will automatically be legally recognised as my wife's husband? That sounds a bit too simple...

SanDiegoGirl, thank you for your reply. Marriage is a human right and I assumed that my marriage would be officially recognised by the UK government as you said. My question is more about the document itself, i.e., at some point I might need to prove that I'm married and the UK government have no means to determine if a piece of paper I give them is or is not a valid marriage certificate in Brazil unless it's somehow certified. That's what I think this service sent by BritInParis offers:

You don’t have to deposit your certificate, but it does mean you’ll be able to order an official, certified copy in English at any time from the GRO.

(i.e., I'll get a British marriage certificate)

At least this is how it works in Brazil: you need to get the document authenticated by the Brazilian consulate in the country where it was issued.

BritInParis

I suspect after 1 Jan 2014 you'll have an apostilled version of the original marriage certificate together with a certified English translation and just hope that this will be acceptable for whatever purpose it is required for in the UK.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/m...overseas-brits

Much better to deposit it now while you can if you can.

plvbrazil

Interesting:

There is no legal requirement to deposit your foreign marriage or civil partnership certificate with the GRO, or to have your marriage/civil partnership recorded in the UK. The deposit of a foreign certificate does not make the marriage legal in the UK, nor does it ‘recognise’ the marriage as a valid one.

So what 'legalises', 'recognises' or whatever... a marriage in the UK?

I was looking on the internet but couldn't find the answer to this question.

BritInParis

And therein lies the problem. There's no way for a foreign marriage to be "recognised" in the UK - depositing your marriage certificate with the FCO was the closest thing to it.