Wednesday, November 16, 2005

Marriage Certificate Attestation for Belgium Dependent visa

I have visited Belgium twice before, once in Nov 2002 (Business Visa) and then in Feb 2003 (work permit visa) both the times my visa was processed by my Indian Employer. No problems at all. Belgium government and I were in good terms :) . But, this time, I was no longer under the Roof of Indian Company. I needed to process things on my own for my stay in Belgium. I was going to be a dependent of my husband. I went to Belgium with my old Belgium stay card and decided to change my status to dependent.

p.s:

1. In Belgium and in most of the EU countries (I guess) if the stay is for more than 3 months, they issue a temporary visa and then we need to register our address in the local commune/town hall and after the police visit & verification of the home address the commune issues a stay card (carte de sejour).

2. Normally the validity of the card is only for a year and we need to renew it every year (first four/five years).


I went to the local commune to change my card status from working –> dependent and also to extend it till Sep 2004. (My old one was valid only till Feb 2004). They asked me to bring my marriage certificate and birth certificate attested by the Belgium Embassy in India (Mumbai/Delhi).

Wow! I at age 25, my Birth certificate was applied for and that was under process (That is another branch story …..hmmmmmmmm). Though, I had the marriage certificate I decided to wait till I get my birth certificate, as I didn’t want to repeat the process of attestation for my birth certificate. Hence the first delay due to Birth Certificate. Once I got the birth certificate, I managed to convince one of my friends in Mumbai and the Travel Agent from X-Company to process it (attestation by Belgium embassy in Mumbai).

1) My father posts the certificates from Trichy to my friend C in Mumbai.

2) C then posts it to Travel Agent in Mumbai :) (internal company post).

3) Travel agent takes those certificates to the Embassy and was told that they need to be attested by the home ministry of my state. That is from secretariat in Chennai(GRRRRRRRR, if they don’t believe the genuineness of the certificate what is the point to have one, for that I can type my own letter saying I married so and so on this date and stuff , they can get them all attested…isn’t it ?)

4) Travel Agent posts it back to C.

5) C posts it back to my father in Trichy.

Poor certificates! How much they travelled ! Their journey continued and doubled…

My certificates are now ready for Chennai sight-seeing :)

6) Certificates are with my friend M and she found that they had to be first attested by an attorney and then Commissioner of Police office verifies his credibility and after all these the “Secretariat office will stamp”. Good for India. But, how come they perfectly issue all the supporting documents for terrorists ;)?

7) My husband’s brother in Chennai took charge now. He got it legalized by a lawyer in Chennai and then took it to Commissioner of Police office in Chennai. Ha!ha! My luck, worked there and the lawyer happened to be registered with “Kanchipuram district”, not under Chennai. So, the certificates were posted to Commissioner of Police office in “Kanchipuram”. No news for weeks. I lost all my hope.

8) My father’s contribution now. He made two trips to Kanchipuram (overnight journey) and then to Chennai and finally “Tamilnadu formalities” were over. (I am sure, my father has got stories to tell about his venture).

9) By then, my friend “C” who was in Mumbai already left to the U.S. My uncle (Dad’s younger brother) from Ahemadabad happily took over:). On receiving the Certificates at Ahemadabad , he traveled to Mumbai (12hrs from Ahemadabad) and finally got them “attested by Belgian Embassy”.

Whose fault is this?

1) By Belgium Foreign office part – its okay, they want to have some confirmation from their own people who are put up in India (Attestation from Belgium Embassy in India). But, why doesn’t Belgium embassy in India, accept my marriage certificate and why did they ask for attestation from my state secretariat?

2) Why the hell didn’t my own state secretariat ask for further attestation by Lawyer and check by commissioner of police?

3) And also, why can't Indian government issue Birth/Marriage Certificates in a common format. The format/size/color al differ from state-state (even from distict -district). Even, if it has to have two languages (state language and English) also, they can issue in same format. But, mostly they are in Enlgish.Grrrrrrrrr..

So, I could have printed my marriage information in a piece of paper and verified all these by above people. Why did we waste quite a amount of time (that’s another stupid 6-8 weeks story) to get Marriage certificate in the first place.

Anyways, finally my Indian part of Belgium dependent visa is over. Belgium events will follow soon.

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

went thru all ur document struggles...heh heh, man, how did u have the patience to go thru all of them...

i guess u need some plain luck in these matters...if i may advise, act a little tough, put on some executive attire, speak some fluent english with them, and speak very loud (like ur used to ordering ppl around gettup)...sometimes that works...

Viji Sundararajan said...

@Rajesh,

Thanks for reading my blog and also for the advice :) But, I guess this advice might make the amount of bribe to hike ;).I hope and wish these don’t continue anymore.

Cheers
Viji

uglyspecs said...

Hi ,
I had similar struggles with my ITALIAN STUDENT VISA , but with some differences ...i was running between my college "GCT"..chennai "SECRETARIAT" ...and chennai"CORPORATION", delhi "CENTRAL EXTERNAL AFFAIRS MINISTRY" ...coz ..european countries require the original birth certificate and degree certificate to be attested with central and state seals !!!They had lot of procedures ...it takes lot of time in each office !!

I really suffered a lot to get my visa done !!

Viji Sundararajan said...

hi sekar,

even for Netherlands,Amsterdam and for most of the EU countries its the same procedure i guess...

by the way, r u from GCT coimbatore ? i am from GTC,cbe 99 passout....

Cheers
Viji

uglyspecs said...

yeah am from GCT , ECE branch , 2004 yr passout ...Nice to know u !!

Viji Sundararajan said...

Cool! GCT ECE 2004 ! nice to know !

Cheers,
Viji

prad said...

Hi, you had struggled a lot & I appreciate your patience.
Actually I am also on the verge of facing same situation & hence stumbled on your blog.

prad said...

I am Indian(Dist chandrapur Maharashtra) currently residing in Japan. I am about to move to Belgium with my wife as I got job opportunity.
could you please guide me in this matter(Legalising Birth & marriage Cert.)
1) I read in one site that the document to be legalised need to be issued recently (before 6 months) Is this true?
2) How to find Notary Public to sign document issued in my district.
3) I also came to know some private company provide legalisation of documents for Belgium. In case you know could you please tell exactly what kind of service they provide.
my mail: vdip11@yahoo.co.in
Sorry to request you this information. Actually Belgium Embassy in Japan & in India are not giving any information.
information how to legalise documents
Thank you for your kind help in advance.

Anonymous said...

i am try to find a name of the agent who could help me with the notarising and running around for my birth certificate legalisation.

please could you let me know of agents in mumbai and delhi if you know of any.

Anonymous said...

I am goign through the same journey. Birth certificate aftre 30years and 2 kids. and also after living in europe for 5 years.
I have been trying for 3 months now to get my dependant visa to belgium and the documnts i need to submit keeps coming one after the other.
My travel agent has no idea about the procedure to follow and I am goign round and round trying to find out how to get my birth certificate legalised. Thank you for you information...the journey continues...

Lolita Dsouza said...

Hi
I need some urgent info and as u know how it is in Belgium..everything is so slow..my case is a little similar to yours..I am an Indian and in Belgium on a dependant visa since December 2007...I got my lettre de convocation stating that i will receive my residence card on June 2nd. However I need to return to India for a few days due to some family reason Mid MArch. Since I do not have my residence card yet do i have to apply for a re-entry visa? or a dependant visa all over again? also if I get a job here in BElgium can I work with a work permit and hold a dependant visa or do I need to return to India to change my visa to a work one?
Please help.

Anonymous said...

hi viji,
we, my wife and me, are going through the same rut...
my wife is applying for the Belgiuan dependent visa from india.
she has done all that legalization stuff for birth and marriage certs.
I have sent her the document showing her residence is ready (my residence allowing two people to stay), my employment letter stating the amount i earn per month....
from her side she has all those police clearance and medical cert ready, after keeping the file ready to this level, you have any outside idea how much to should it take and is this file complete?
ur help will be cordially apreciated....
thanks in advance.

Anonymous said...

Hi,

Me too going thru te same process..
I have already got my marriage ,birth certificate issued recently .
But don't know from where to get GAD attestation.The say they require GAD attestation on birth certificate from the state u r born.Can u pls help me in understanding what is GAD attestation ?
Thanks,
TM

Malachi said...

Hi,

I just moved to Belgium in Jan 08 and I must say... your words summarize in perfect detail the plight of foreigners here. The bad news is that the the problems continue throughout your stay here. Anyways... ALl the best best! Thats a great piece of literature.

Anonymous said...

Hi ...

ah.....! how patient you are....! really ...great

my husband is getting job in Belgium ...& Belgium people have just given an idea about how to apply for Visa ....however, we do not know any agent who can help us in getting all required certificates....would you please assist us in finding suitable agent in Delhi or Vadodara or anywhere else in India.....we would be highly obliged .

Anonymous said...

You're right Viji. I'm facing the same issue for my BC for Netherlands work permit. For last 2 months am running between all the government offices. The sequence is like Secreteriate->Collector office->Thasildhar office->RI->Union Office and the reverse vice versa to Secreteriat. If the government couldnt control the issuing authority for genuineness of the certificate they're moving all the burden to the citizen. They should ensure the certificates by its common format as somebody told and should ensure. There are lot of unnecessary waste of time and energy even money too. No need to talk about the functioning of government offices in India. That too is a very bad experience.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Abisurd said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...

Do you have copy writer for so good articles? If so please give me contacts, because this really rocks! :)

Anonymous said...

I really like when people are expressing their opinion and thought. So I like the way you are writing