Plenty of things have happened since the Goat’s previous post, including a Wedding, some outrageous Millinery, the death of a Terrorist and the UK’s first Referendum in 36 years. All of these have been commented ad nauseam by others, and the Goat doesn’t feel able to add much in the way of new thoughts.Sadly, offers of permanent employment have remained non-existent, and the Goat is therefore currently in the UAE visiting his Beloved Wife in 30-day chunks.
The process of becoming a Kept Goat under Beloved Wife’s sponsorship turns out to involve various jumps through widely-spaced flaming hoops. Although an official marriage certificate was obtained from the Commonwealth of Virginia in 2007, it now transpires that this original copy cannot be attested because it is more than one year old. How about that? American marriage certificates appear only to be valid for a year, or so it seems.
The document is perfectly acceptable to prevent the Men In White from kicking down the door of the Crumbling Villa and hauling folk off to Al Slammah for adultery, but is insufficient proof of marriage for the purposes of obtaining Resident status.
A new certificate has been obtained from the County. This now has to be returned to the County for attestation. Then it has to go to the State Office. Of course, the document must be returned to Beloved Wife at each stage; it’s not possible to post it to the office just up the road. And then the multiply-stamped certificate goes to the UAE Embassy in Washington DC, again via Dubai, before it has incurred sufficient bureaucracy to be acceptable, and the Residence Visa process can commence.
How about getting someone – a brother-in-law, perhaps – who lives in Virginia to handle the various stages? Not possible: fees have to be paid by cheque* drawn on the account of one of the parties named on the marriage certificate, and the document must be returned to that person each time.
Of course, the moment the Goat becomes re-employed, all this marriage certificate attestation will become moot. Unfortunately, the Goat is not holding his breath.
* Possibly ‘check’ given that it’s drawn on an American bank.
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4 comments:
howdy, goat--the spousal visa process is indeed a massive pain in the hindquarters.
but I think you might be getting some bad information. unless things have changed drastically since 2009 (when I got my wife her spousal visa), there is no requirement to return the document to its original handler each time.
for me, the process went like this:
1) friend in chicago got several copies of our marriage certificate from cook county (where we were married).
2) he took those to the secretary of state's office (happily, also with a convenient chicago location) and had them authenticated.
3) he then fedexed the whole kit and caboodle to a different friend in washington, d.c., who took them to the appropriate u.s. sec'y of state office and had them authenticated.
4) he then sent the twice-authenticated document to me here in the uae.
5) I took it to the u.s. embassy in abu dhabi to have all THAT authenticated.
6) I took this now-massively stamped pile of paperwork to the (I think) foreign ministry in abu dhabi to get one final stamp.
and that was it. all the u.s. stuff you should be able to do in the span of about a week if you use overnight delivery services.
The marriage certificate is only good for one year b/c few American marriages last longer than that. Zing!
We know the feeling. We have just applied for the Gnomadette's Indefinite Leave to Remain in the UK. The paperwork weighed in at half a kilo and includes our passports.
Processing times are given as "We aim to process 95% of applications within six months"
We did get a response from the UK Border agency acknowledging receipt of the form which includes the phrase
"We would appreciate it if you did not enquire about the progress of the application before you hear from us"
So we can't enquire until they choose to tell us something, so in other words "It'll take as long as it takes and we won't update you on the progress".
Might it not be easier to get yourself a RAK Freezone professional license + visa for about 16-20K? Takes about two weeks and you could then also work as free-lancer / part-time consultant.
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