# Greek Marriage Cert for VISA



## me..me..me (Sep 16, 2015)

I am desperate to get some advice on getting my Marriage Certificate Attested. I am a uk citizen but we were married in Greece. The UK FCO will not legalise it so the UAE Embassy in the UK will not attest it.
Does anyone know of anyone who can advise me how to get around this problem. Is there anyway of doing it in the UAE from the original Certificate ie the Greek Embassy in the UAE legalising it and then getting a greek to Arabic translation.
I'm tearing my hair out. If I cannot find a solution its home to the UK for me :-( as I can't get my family out here!
Thanks in anticipation everyone.
Justin


----------



## aliland (Jul 19, 2013)

I don't know anything about the UAE, but I imagine this is a UK/Greek problem, and its not you - its a nightmare!

I'm British, my husband is Greek - we got married in the UK, but it took forever to get that recognised in Greece. My sister is also married to a Greek, they married in Greece and took forever to get it recognised in the UK - we also have many friends with similar, non found it straight forward but here is a little advice..
Neither the British embassy in Greece, nor the forigne office are likely to be of any help, and you will be the exception if your lucky enough to find a helpful Greek official.
Basically, your probably missing some paper - but no one ever seems to know exactly which one, just that you don't have it. I am assuming your wife is Greek. 

Has your wife's family paper been updated? get a copy from the mayor of where she votes to check she has been fully registered as married to you. If you were married in an orthodox church, you may need to have that registered in a Greek orthodox church in the UK (really not sure why - likely to be your wife not you who needs to do this)
Don't panic about having to go home, yes - you will often be told you or your wife need to sign in person, but in actual fact you can just appoint power of attorney and get someone to do things for you (for some reason no one ever tells you this, and its a simple case of going in to a police station with copies of your ID and that of the other person - the police stamp a letter which the other person can then use to sign things on your behalf)
If you get really stuck - if its just taking far too long for example- a judge can often fix it. you go to court and sware your telling the truth and they give you a letter which works for getting round some things. Before you do this, check it will actually help, if it will the British embassy in Athens will do it - maybe the embassy in UAE.
Certain forms must be 'apostolised' this seems to be an odd way of getting money of people. you send of documents - I think it is somewhere in Spain- which get a stamp to say they are real. I had to do this with my passport, I can't understand why it wasn't official enough before, so my husband's mayor accepted I was who I said I was. Also, despite marrying in the UK, my husband had to register in a Greek embassy in the UK ( my dad did it with powers of attorney) using a copy of our marriage certificate which although we had been to a lawyer for an official translation - it also needed sending to Spain for a stamp???
I don't know how familiar you are with Greek burocracy, but it takes time. Always take the name of who you are taking to. If they say something that sounds rediculous, note it down, but phone another place and start again. You might get eight or nine people in a row telling you something can't be done / is not their job/ is very expensive / requires rediculous things ( eg loads of people told me I needed a letter from the home office proving who I am, HOwere helpful and sympathetic, but that form simply does not exist as passport should do the job) if this happens, say thank you and keep phoning. 
For example, when once I needed a residents permit, the sixth or seventh guy I phoned thought the process lookedstupid and found a way around it. I needed a bank account before I managed to get the marriage stuff worked out, it was impossible in the big city branch - the the manager in a tiny town agreed there was no reason why not.. so don't lose patients when you hear no - keep asking.
Name drop a lot. Often you will be told 'that not my job' if you say Mr so and so from such and such advised me it was .. half the time people will think about doing a bit more to help. Also experiment with different approaches, eg - my husband would phone all polite asking for advise sounding desperate, then I'd phone all assertive like I knew my rights and their information was incorrect, when we got bored, we swapped. it was not a fun day, but we built up a list of helpful people.
In all my dealings with Greek/UK paper problems, by far the best person to help ran the Greek embassy in Birmingham. I took over a number of years to start with him, even when I knew it wasn't his job (like sorting doctors) because he was really helpful. He may have retired by now, but it illustrates my point about phoning around until you find someone useful. Once, I phoned an Erasmus lecturer in Aberystwyth - for no other reason than I reckoned a Greek professional living in the UK might have faced the issue I had and explain in to me - I was right.

As a last bit of advice - before you hand over money (eg lawyer) check with the next person they will accept that document, and if all else fails - you may be able to go to a registers office and remarry (we came close at one point)! 

I hope something in there will give you a bit of help, if you go back on this forum - you may find more ideas, its something that seems to happen to many


----------

