Foreign marriage, civil registry and family book
 

Hi All

My wife and I are both British citizens and we have just received a favourable resolution of a residency application in Spain.

My wife is originally Chinese, we met and married in China over 10 years ago. We have Chinese marriage certificates (you get one each) and a certified translation from the time we got married that worked for British purposes.

We applied for residency individually because our lawyer told us it would be difficult to establish our relationship. I was surprised but now understand this. It looks like you have to produce recent (3 months) certificates with sworn and apostilled translations.

I doubt very much that we would be able to get a current certificate, even if we rocked up in person in the Chinese boondocks where we wed, there would then be the issue of apostille.

Just wondering whether anyone else has faced similar issues in documenting a third-country marriage and how they were able to resolve it if at all.

Thanks!