niblue

As part of my on-boarding for a role in Abu Dhabi I had to send off various original documents (marriage certificate, kids birth certificates and my degree certificate) to a attestation providers UK office, organised by my prospective employer.

When I had the documents returned to me a few weeks later I was very surprised (and not particularly happy) to find that about 50% of the back of the birth and marriage certificates were covered in various stamps and signatures. That wasn't the case for the degree certificate - for it a photocopy had been taken and all the stamps and signatures put onto that.

Is that normal? My expectation was that the original documents would be returned to me unmolested - if I'd know this was going to happen I'd have arranged to get copies from the registrar in the UK and sent those instead.

nottmbantam

My qualification certificates were pretty much untouched, but the marriage and birth certificates did have FCO stickers and Saudi Embassy stamps all over the back. I'm guessing it's the 'norm'. You can always go back to the issuing office for the marriage and births and get new, clean copies, just hassle that you don't need, but I actually thought after a while, it's useful to have them with the stamps already on the back.