My husband is currently working in Dubai. I am due to join him in August with our two children. He has told me that his company will only require our marriage certificate and kids’ birth certificates in order to process our visas, but I’ve read that I require to have them notarized, then sent to a place in Milton Keynes and then onto London. Can you advise as to which is correct? I’m British and he is Australian, but we married in the UK. Many thanks.
Foreign documents such as Marriage and Birth certificates have to be fully legalized for use in the UAE in order to be recognized by the UAE authorities. The legalization process must be initiated in the country the documents were issued, and completed in the country where the documents will be used.
In this particular case, documents should bear an Apostille which will be further verified by the UAE Embassy in London. The final legalization needs to be done by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the UAE.
The process usually involves getting a document notarized by a notary in UK, then taking the document to the London Common Wealth & Foreign Affairs office for them to do the legalization on it, and to verify the notary stamp. You then take the document to the UAE Embassy in London and they do their bit. Then the document comes to Dubai and you go to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs office and have it all certified there. The whole process is quite costly and time consuming, and you end up with several stamps on the back of things. You can pay lawyers in Dubai to do it all for you, but again this does cost. I did the process myself in the end, because I trust myself more than someone else with important documents!