Prince74 wrote:fj2020 wrote:Hi,
I'm UK resident having ILR and going to get married to a Pakistani girl next month. I'm planning to apply for her visa right after marriage. She has got no passport yet.
Now options are:
**in next few weeks, she should get a passport so that we can apply for visa after 2-3 days of wedding.
**apply for passport after wedding to get name of husband added in passport. It would delay the process of visa application at least 2-3 weeks.
Now, question is that is there some benefit of having husband's name in passport? if so where do it help?
thanks
In terms of helping with getting a visa, having your surname in your wife's passport has no benefit at all.
While I do agree that a wife's surname change will neither have any impact on the outcome of the settlement visa application, nor it's a UKBA specific requirement. However, as the OP is marrying a Pakistani female he must keep in mind the technicalities of the various Government Departments in Pakistan and their ever changing policies that are implemented largely without as much as a courtesy notification to the general public. You only find out about these policy changes upon reaching the counter after waiting in queues for hours at their offices.
@fj2020, If you want to avoid the hassle of queuing up for hours and then being turned away at UC / NADRA / Passport Office / MOFA, then do it right by default and get off on the right foot.
My advice to you:
1. Firstly and most importantly
DO NOT RUSH into submitting your wife-to-be's settlement application "
within 2-3 days of wedding" as you're suggesting. You will not be able to do that anyway, read on.
2. Make sure that ASAP after your Nikah the nikah-khwan gets your Nikahnama properly registered and endorsed by the local UC. Instruct him to get it stamped clearly because they are habitual in smudged/uneven stamping of documents. (
Make sure the words "UC" or "Union Council" clearly show on stamp unless you want Gerry's to turn you away for not having Nikahnama registered with UC). When that's done go to a reputed Notary Public / Oath Commissioner and get your Urdu Nikahnama translated to English and make sure they attest it. The English translated Nikahnama must have the contact details of the translator.
3. Acquire and keep safe the CNIC copies of:
- Your parents
- Wife & her parents
- The Nikah-khwan (this will be required, trust me)
4. Go to your local Nadra Swift Registration Center with your registered and endorsed Nikahnama alongwith the above CNIC copies and get your CNIC/NICOP modified, obviously because your marital status will change after marriage. Due to your marriage you'll be creating a new family, albeit census-wise. You'll be assigned a new 'Family(
خاندان) number' on your modified CNIC/NICOP. Your wife's details will be added to your data in the NADRA database. Before submitting any forms for this modification do consult the Branch Manager whether your own CNIC/NICOP should be modified first or your wife's CNIC, also if both could be done simultaneously. Though my logic says the husband's CNIC/NICOP would be modified first because the 'Family number' is issued to the head of the family, i.e the husband. So if your CNIC/NICOP is modified first then after receiving your modified CNIC/NICOP you'll go to Nadra Swift Registration Center again with your Nikahnama, your modified CNIC/NICOP and the CNICs mentioned before and get your wife's CNIC modified to get her surname changed to your surname.
5. After receiving your wife's modified CNIC take that alongwith your Nikahnama, your modified CNIC/NICOP and the CNICs mentioned before to your local UC and apply for a MRC (Marriage Registration Certificate, issued by NADRA). Make sure it has the UC stamp.
6. Take this whole lot of paperwork alongwith the other requirements to Passport Office and get your wife's passport issued with your surname. The Passport Department's database is merged with NADRA's database so your details will be automatically linked to your wife's passport data as you’ve already managed to link your CNIC/NICOP to hers.
7. While you’re waiting for her passport to be issued get this done; make 4/5 photocopies of the Urdu Nikahnama, the English translation and the MRC and go to MOFA, once there ninja kick away all the touts who'll circle you like vultures, you can do it yourself, once inside MOFA first pay the stamp fees for all these documents at the stamp's counter, go stand in document submission queue and submit the whole lot for attestation. They don't attest Passports and CNICs.
Make sure your details are added to your wife's data at The Passport Office. Trust me this will save you a whole lot of hassle later on when you'll apply for her NICOP and/or her Pakistani passport renewals later on in the UK, as well as issuance of NICOPs / Pakistani passports for your future children. Thanks to the Pakistani Embassy at Knightsbridge my relative who's a GP was given the hassle of modifications of all her documents in reverse when she went there to apply for her British born kid’s NICOP. She didn’t have her husband’s surname in her Pakistani passport nor the MRC so she was told to alternatively get a NICOP herself with her husband’s surname in it and obviously for that the husband needed to apply for modification in his NICOP first. Eventually they had to make an unnecessary trip to Pakistan to reverse modify the required documents.
I’m sure you’ll give your surname to your kids, right? My wife and son are both British born, they went to Dubai on a holiday, despite both having British Passports my wife was questioned at Heathrow Arrivals EU queue, why? Because my son has my surname in his passport and wife had her father’s name in her passport, so the officer wanted her to prove our son is hers and not someone else’s, luckily she had our son’s birth certificate handy to prove she’s the mother.
It's not about "Husband's name on passport,
any benefits", there's no detriment in having a Husband's name on passport or other documents, on the contrary it'll just save you future hassle as far as dealing with Pakistan Government Departments and specially Pakistan Immigration at exit control.
In the end don't forget that apart from your/sponsor’s side of documents and requirements, before your wife/applicant applies for settlement visa she'll have to pass the English language requirement test unless she has the academic qualification which is deemed by UK NARIC to meet the recognised standard of a Bachelor's degree, a Master's degree or a PhD. Also she has to get tested for Tuberculosis (TB) and get clearance certificate from the local IOM Office. Taking care of both these requirements alongwith the previous ones that I’ve mentioned will take time, delaying you guys from applying for her visa as quickly as "after 2-3 days of wedding"
Unless ofcourse if everthing’s already been sorted.
Good Luck,
Phase7.
a bit worried now because i would be going on 15 day leave.