Brits should marry in HK?

Having reread the thread, I’m confused.

Straydog, at the moment are you trying to get married or trying to get a JFRV (spouse visa)?

If you’re trying to get married, then you need to take your certificate of no impediment to marriage (authorised at Taiwan’s pseudo-embassy in your home country) to the district court). It must be translated into Chinese (but this doesn’t have to be a professional or ‘authenticated’ translation).

When you apply for the JFRV the tricky piece of paper you need is the document of clean criminal record (CCRD).

Unless I’m missing something here?

Brian

[quote]Huh? Why do MOFA need to see a certificate of no impendiment to marriage. That’s for the district court.
[/quote]
Hmmm. Yeah, you’re right. Why do you need to get a certificate of non-impediment “authorized” by MOFA? I never had to – as Bri says, a stamp on the back from the rep office in Britland and off it goes to the court. MOFA doesn’t have anything to do with it.
Stray Dog, are we indeed talking about the same thing?

That’s what I did - and it worked fine. It was legalised by the F&CO and the TRO (both in the UK), but NOT the MOFA. (The BTCO advice says it should also be authorised by MOFA, so I don’t know if they’ve changed the law in the last 18 months)

Did you ask MOFA what they would accept as proof that you are single?

According to my fiancee’s research, I had to submit the document to MOFA. So now maybe I don’t. But they’ve already cancelled it.

I’m trying to marry right now, not get the visa.

Will try the GRO route, and if that fails, we’ll do it in HK, if that really is the easiest way.

Well, the best things in life should never be too easy to get, right?

Thanks for all the advice.

Stray Dog

(I don’t seem to be able to rely to this thread via the ‘postreply’ route ???)

[quote]According to my fiancee’s research, I had to submit the document to MOFA. So now maybe I don’t. But they’ve already cancelled it.
[/quote]

How did they cancel it? Did they stamp on top of it or something. I don’t see how they have the authority to do that, but I guess it’s done, so nothing you can do about it.

The thing is you were working under mistaken information. The document did not have to go to MOFA at all. Get another one (hassle, I know), get it stamped by the ‘embassy’ in London, and take it to the district court. If you’re getting married in court, I’m not quite sure fo the process (PM Iris for details perhaps), but if you’re getting married in a banquet you just need to get a couple of marriage certificates signed and witnessed and take these with you (along with all IDs, chops, passports etc) to the District Court (I think it has to be in the district where your spouse has her household registration). When they approve it (on the spot), you’re married. You then have to register it at Household Registration within a certain period of time. Then if you want the JFRV visa, that’s when you take a CCRD and all the other stuff to MOFA.

Unless you really want a trip to HK, I suggest that this would be the easiest route.

Here is a post I wrote 2 years ago, but I believe the information is still up to date.

[Getting Married in Taiwan

Brian

Brian makes a good point - it is the district court which decides if/when you are legally married. You should check with them what they will accept as proof that you are unmarried. If they don’t need the document authorised by MOFA, then you don’t need to involve MOFA.

Incidentally I was married in Hsindien - while my wife’s household registration was in Pingtung, so it is possible to choose which district court you use (however, the guy who married us was a friend of my brother-in-law, so rules may have been stretched there …)

The problem (as with most Taiwanese legal problems) is that the law is a bit fuzzy, and the interpretation by the officials is even fuzzier - so finding the guy who will perform the marriage, and asking him what he will accept is probably the way to go …

That’s good advice, thanks.

I’ll try that route, but in the meantime I’m ordering the GRO search.

Thanks for all the help.

p.s. To answer, they stamped “Cancelled” all over the stamp from the UK Taipei Rep. Office

Hi, Very interesting thread. I am thinking of doing the same as stray dog. 2 Questions:

  1. In HK marriage website it says:
    How to file in a Notice of Marriage
    marital status (i.e. whether bachelor/spinster; widower/widow; a divorced person; or previously married by any form of marriage);
    Q. what kind of proof do i need to supply?

2.If we get married in Hong Kong, does that mean we don’t need the single certificate??? to get registered here in Taipei when we get back.

[quote]Q. what kind of proof do I need to supply?
[/quote]
I don’t know, but there’s a good possibility you’ll still need a non-impediment document of some kind.

You won’t need the single certificate to register your HK marriage in Taiwan – in fact, how could you have such a certificate to show the Taiwan authorities? You’d be a married person by that time, after all. :wink:

David, I’ve arranged the GRO search, but they told me they can only search up to last year; is that what happened to you?

I’m concerned, because surely the document needs to be less than 3 months old.

Appreciate your feedback.

Thanks,

Stray Dog

[quote=“Stray Dog”]David, I’ve arranged the GRO search, but they told me they can only search up to last year; is that what happened to you?

I’m concerned, because surely the document needs to be less than 3 months old.

Appreciate your feedback.

Thanks,

Stray Dog[/quote]

The GRO can only check if you got married in the UK else if you ever filed for a cert before.

Any way you need to apply to your local registrar ( don’t know if there is an application form)

You need to also supply the following
Proof of your identity (original birth certificate or passport).
Divorce Decree Absolute (if divorced).
Your details. (full name, address, etc)
Your fianc

Also I would say that eventhough Scotland, Wales, England and NI are part of the UK, the marriage laws of each region may vary in relation to age, issuing of certs, required residency before being physically married in the respective region

The TECO office will stamp any document. They are notarizing the signature not the contents. The don’t care for what purpose you use this in Taiwan or whether it is applicable for a certain purpose. The MOFA stamps it to validate the TECO office and then the District court will accept it. Any way the decision lies with the court

However in this case in the eyes of the MOFA they probabily are looking for a nice letter head document saying X Y and Z and signed by some offical registrar office in the UK and stamped by the TECO office. Seeing something they have not see before or have not expected is an automatic reject

[quote]David, I’ve arranged the GRO search, but they told me they can only search up to last year; is that what happened to you?

I’m concerned, because surely the document needs to be less than 3 months old.
[/quote]
The search I got was from the year I was 16 until the last year I was resident in the UK - so (in my case) they didn’t search the last 2 years! I was explicitly told that was all I needed - and indeed it worked fine for me. Unfortunately, I can’t remember WHO told me that is all I needed, sorry

The letter you get is a bit weird because it says something along the lines of “Unfortunately we can’t find a record of your marriage, so are unable to issue a copy of the marriage certificate”. As I mentioned, you can get the GRO to send the letter direct to the F&CO for legalisation (and if you’re really clever get the F&CO to pass it on to the Taipei trade office in the UK).

This was accepted by the court official as proof of single status - No involvement of MOFA in Taiwan.

So when did you leave the UK?

Edit: Just to add, I know one other person who did this - and he also needed to give the court a translation of the original document into Chinese.

Be Careful!!!

This is where you went wrong last time.

You do not need MOFA to stamp it. You don’t want them to bloody cancel it again do you?

MOFA need not have anything to do with it. Get it stamped by the TECO in London, then take it to the district court.

Brian

This seem strange
Why does the Registrar’s office say they can and do issue a “Certificate Of No Impedance” to marry when they didn’t issue one to you?

It seems in your case they issued something to the affect of saying " we have no record of him being married" as against “the registrar’s office says Mr David xxxx is free to marry”

In addition they may have changed the regulations.
When I asked the MOFA before I got married, wha should I do with the “Certificate Of No Impedance”, they told me I had to get the MOFA to stamp it.

Can’t say I tried it without getting it stamped from the MOFA, but the document I presented to the MOFA after the TECO office stamped it was a “Certificate Of No Impedient” issued originally from the Department Of Foreign Affairs Of Ireland. They stamped it without a problem, and when I asked why it took one day to do this, they told me that they had to check with the TECO office in Dublin

Be Careful!!!

This is where you went wrong last time.

You do not need MOFA to stamp it. You don’t want them to bloody cancel it again do you?

MOFA need not have anything to do with it. Get it stamped by the TECO in London, then take it to the district court.

Brian[/quote]

I thought the MOFA have to stamp it. They have to check with the TECO office in the country where it was stamped to check was it the TECO office that stamped it.

I do not know if the district courts have records of TECO offices and the relevant chops and signatures for each office. If they accept documents directly from a TECO office in a foreign country and have no way to check it, then what is to stop a person forging documents as if they were issued from a TECO office. The court would have to accept these if the rule was they must accept documents from a TECO office in a foreign country.

Don’t want to mislead here but I thought that was the reasoning behind it. I could be wrong

[quote]I thought the MOFA have to stamp it. They have to check with the TECO office in the country where it was stamped to check was it the TECO office that stamped it.
[/quote]

Mine, sure as hell wasn’t.

And Stray Dogs got bloody cancelled by MOFA when he tried. So don’t go anywhere near them.

Brian

[quote]This seem strange
Why does the Registrar’s office say they can and do issue a “Certificate Of No Impedance” to marry when they didn’t issue one to you?

It seems in your case they issued something to the affect of saying " we have no record of him being married" as against “the registrar’s office says Mr David xxxx is free to marry”[/quote]
Exactly. The GRO did not issue (or claim to issue) a Certificate of No Impediment. My understanding of Taiwan law is that you need a “proof of single status” - and what they’ll accept for this varies from country to country (and is not clearly defined for every country). For the UK they should accept a letter from the GRO, a ‘Certificate of No Impediment’, or (maybe if you’re lucky, which Stray Dog wasn’t) a signed affadavit.

I got married in Jan 2003 (and know someone who did the same in 2002) - it is possible things have changed since then.

I’d agree with Brian and suggest NOT getting MOFA involved if possible: get all the documents you think are necessary and take them to the District Court where you plan to get married and check “is this all we need?” (you need to do this by law before the wedding anyway). If they say “Nope. we need this legalised by MOFA”, only then (after double/triple checking with them) should you go to MOFA.

[quote=“Bu Lai En”][quote]I thought the MOFA have to stamp it. They have to check with the TECO office in the country where it was stamped to check was it the TECO office that stamped it.
[/quote]

Mine, sure as hell wasn’t.

And Stray Dogs got bloody cancelled by MOFA when he tried. So don’t go anywhere near them.

Brian[/quote]
You are probabily right then… and I think we had to pay for it as well
Maybe it was a way for the MOFA to make a quick buck for themselves

[quote=“Stray Dog”]According to my fiancee’s research, I had to submit the document to MOFA. So now maybe I don’t. But they’ve already cancelled it.[quote]

One thing that may be irrelevant

They have cancelled the notarization of the TECO office right?

The guy in the TECO office notarized this. What does cancelling it mean?
Are they saying that the MOFA do not recognize the TECO office in the UK, else they do not recognize the Taiwanese official in his capacity to notarize documents and are retroactively applying this so as to screw you?
I am unsure how this cancellation is valid.

How did they cancel the notarization; by stamping it? and what does the stamp say? does it say that the document or the notarization is cancelled?

If they cancelled the document I would like to get an explanation from them on who in the British government or Registrars office released the authority to the MOFA of the ROC to cancel documents that originated from British government or Registrars office. I would also ask the BOCA to ask them this?

If they did not cancel the document, you could in theory get it notarized again, and probably by the same guy that the MOFA invalidated the first time.