Success story: Non-EU spouse got visa for Spain

[Hmminator]

Hey,

I thought I'd share my success story because I've seen a few British people on this board have trouble getting their spouse into Spain because they insisted that their marriage certificate be registered with the UK which British embassies don't do.

My Filipina wife and I had the same problem. When she went to the Spanish Consulate in Manila last month to apply for her visa to live in Spain with me they refused her on the spot because our Filipino marriage certificate isn't registered with the UK government and refused to listen to any pleas about how the British government doesn't offer that service and how registration in the home country isn't required with EU Directive 2004/38/EC.

Anyways, after a month of email arguments (I also filed a complaint with Solvit but they haven't gotten back to me in the last seven weeks) they finally agreed to accept our marriage certificate if we could prove the 'validity' of our marriage. Mainly, they wanted to see evidence that we had lived in the same country for more than a year (for this we gave them copies of our passports showing the entry and exit stamps proving that we'd both been in Taiwan at the same time for two years, along with our Taiwanese resident's cards), as well as evidence that we had followed the correct marriage procedure in the Philippines (so they wanted copies of the documents we used to apply for our marriage license).

When she went to apply they also asked her questions about me and my family, I guess to show that we know each other and didn't just meet last week or whatever.

I knew this was still going way above what they're supposed to ask for according to the law but we took it anyway. She went and applied for her visa with all that stuff this morning and it was accepted! She has an appointment to go back and pick up her passport next week.

So this is just a success story for people out there having the same kind of issues getting the Spanish government (or other European governments) to recognise their foreign marriage certificate. Keep pushing and suggest alternative options for proving your marriage and hopefully they'll sway eventually.

[smccue]

Hi there,
I'm in a similar situation (me being the Foreign spouse) and hats off to you guys for making it work! I hate this process. Spain is a nightmare.

Did you have any problems with having a marriage certificate older than 3 months, or did you move to Spain immediately after getting married? That's where we're stuck now!

[Hmminator]

We only got married in August so there was no problem with our marriage certificate being too old but we're thinking it's probably gonna end up being a problem when it comes to getting her Resident's Card since it 'expires' in November. We'll just have to wait and see!