Hello,

I applied for my wife's visa from Mumbai India on end of June. The whole procedure seems to be a joke to me. The primary aim is to make sure that the applied person is a legitimate one and for that there are some documents named, marriage certificate, passports from india authorities. They ask for all the relevant documents to be verified by relevant authorities mentioned in their official website.

The document comes to Germany in seven weeks (Pigeon would bring faster :-) ). Once the document reaches here, they let the person sitting here (our nostalgic angestellter/in) to decide whether the document is a valid one (Intution or god's will, he/she will manage to decide), obviously he will let the authorities back in Mumbai to prove whether the docu is valid ( Why the hell these people don't verify in the first place and then send the document, sorry we can not ask questions ?), Now you (the victim) have to pay some 250 ... 750 euro for this verification process which takes another three months. I do not really understand who is trying to make whom fool ?

The funniest thing is if you apply from india when you are already married the whole process takes little less than ten days to complete. But if you are in Germany as software engineer (Green Card holder), you are in a big mess ? You shooted on you feet, why the hell did not you married b4 you came here, buddy ???

I hope somebody is hearing here ? no comments here ?

Greeting,
Starter.

Hi,

I am from Belgium.

The spouse visa proceedure is more or less the same here too. It took nearly 3 months for my husband. He submitted his papers in Belgium embassy, Mumbai. and all his docs came to Brussels via diplomatic pouch. I thought this would be much faster than DHL, but it took nearly 3 weeks to arrive here ;). And then they made a decision for his VISA and intimated Mumbai embassy. Atlast he got his visa after 3 months. I was also making lot of comments, jokes about their bureaucracy. The good thing is we didn't pay anything otherthan his visa fee.

However, at the end.. you will (be a / learn to be more) "PATIENT".


We are moving to Wolfenbuttel, Germany in two months. Hope to get the visa without much problems !

Hi Guys,
You seem to scare the wit out of me. My wife and kids applied for the spouse visa in the end of July and I hope to get them here in the 3rd week of September. I have booked tickets, moving to a bigger house etc. etc. So is this a long shot? They applied in Chennai. Is Chennai faster than Mumbai, by any chance?

Hello Starter,

Mine is also the same case like u.
I also applied for my wife's visa in mumbai in last week of June, I called then after three weeks to ask about the status , then the lady in the Ausländerabteilung Köln told me that she received the fax from mumbai but she don't know where my wife will be staying in Köln(stupid question), I told her that she will be staying with me and to be safe side I told her my address once again , then she told me that she will be sendig a letter with termin immidiately by post but it took 2 weeks till I got that post (its just 20 mins from my house to that Ausländerabteilung office).But she specified the termin after three weeks , that makes total six weeks . I was happy that once this meeting is over then my wife can come in another two weeks. On the day of termit to my surprise she told me that my marriage certificate has to be verified and I have to bear the total cost, but the verification may take from 2 to 4 months, I said I will pay and then she gave me sheet of paper where its was specified that I will bear the total cost ,I signed it and reqested her to process it immi.
On my request she faxed the signed paper to mumbai on same day(friday) but I got one more surprise on tuesday saying that she got a fax from mumbai that the signed paper is not valid and my wife has to personally go to german counslate in Mumbai and pay 15000 INR(300 euros ) and then they will start the varification .

Due to this highly illitrate people(who say just "Es tut mir leid" or "bitte haben sie geduld" ) sitting in the offices and due to there miscommunication the case is being dragged for weeks and weeks.

Now I don't know after paying the money also what they are going ask for and how long they are going to drag this .

Any how I left the hope for atleast another four months about getting visa to my wife.

I am also thinking that "why the hell I didn't got married b4 I came here".

Rgd
assr

Hello Assr,

Yes, i too think it is really one of the stupid processes and there are no ways except to dance in their tunes ?

From which place you are exactly in India ? If your marriage cert is issued from mumbai only then the whole procedure should not take longer than some weeks but fingers crossed as usual. We are in the 21st century with all sorts of electronic media to do faster communication but pigeons should also do some work, isn't it ? :-))).

I have no idea about the whole thing and how they would proceed now but it makes me nervous too. It is equally hard to convince my wife that this procedure is harder than marrying.

I followed all the things the consulate mentioned for submission of application. You can also have a look at long threads of discussion here by searching on keyword "Spouse Visa".

I will update you as the things proceed at my end, rest i do not think we can do anything via this forum to expediate this process. Can we ???

Greetings,
Starter.

Dear Friend,
I am also a green card holder living in Germany(Munich) for last 4.5 years.
I am getting married this October and planning to bring my wife under family reunion visa. Last year 5 of my friends got married and 4 of them could bring their wife with in 1 month to Germany and one came with the wife after his marriage (He was living in Germany [Green Card] for last 4 years as a Bachelor).
One of the 5 had a two months delay in bringing his wife and there are specific reasons why it happened.
The fact is that all of these 5 people applied from Chennai and followed the same procedure.
I am planning to follow the same procedure
The most important procedure is to attest the marriage certificate .
THE MARRIAGE CERTIFICATE MUST BE ATTESTED BY THE STATE HOME DEPARTMENT.
Can you tell me did you already did this and still you had the delay and had to pay a lot of money ?.
The problem is not the consulate in India the problem occurs in Germany if you do not attest the marriage certificate properly (Procedure given in bold letters in German consulate website) the KVR (Foreign Office) is suspicious about the validity of the marriage and they want to make an inquiry of their own with some private detectives in India and the fee for their operation must be paid by you. The time taken for the inquiry no body knows. This is what happened to my friend. He was fortunate because it finished in 2 months also he has a friend who was working for the Govt. of Germany in India I think he also pushed the process.

The smartest idea among the procedure is to start the procedure before you get married (This will work if and only if you find a nice person in KVR in your section).
(1)You give your papers 1 month before you go for marriage
(2)The officer in KVR accepts the papers on one condition that you will FAX him the attested marriage certificate as early as possible.
(3)He agrees that he will fax the NOC to the consulate (where you want) as soon as he receives the request from the consulate.
(4)YOU WILL BARE THE COST FOR FAXING
(5)You take the contact details of the officer and go for marriage
(6)Get married in your Country
(7)Attest the marriage certificate and fax it to the person in KVR
(8)He is happy
(9)You apply for VISA in an German Consulate
(10)You are in a Honeymoon trip
(11)German Consulate send the request to KVR by post in your German city (We don't know in how many days)
(12)They FAX the NOC immediately.
(13)As soon as they get the NOC they inform your wife about the VISA confirmation.

If it works possible delays are in step (7) & step (11)
delay in step(7) could be reduced either by a personal contact or with bribing (It is bad but we have to do it)
And you can't do anything to push step (11).

Very recently one of my friend was more lucky.
He followed the same procedure but he was fortunate enough to skip step (11).
This is what happened
step (12) happened before step (11).
That is the officer in Munich KVR send an NOC to Chennai consulate before he gets married .
So Chennai consulate doesn't had to send the papers to Munich.
But he was a little bit lazy to do the step (7) which created a delay in the whole process and his wife reached 2 weeks after he reached Munich.

But whatever we do they have the right to reject our request because VISA is not our human right.
Also foreigners had done enough VISA frauds in this country in the past and are doing even now but unfortunately people like us who want to do things in proper way are suffering.

Hello Starter,

I think u are right , that we can't do any thing via this forum but this could be just a sort of info to other indian guys who may be getting married in near future , at least they will be prepared for the delay in the visa process.

I am from chandrapur(near Nagpur) , so I think the varification for the marriage certificate will take minimum of one month, but I lost hope for minimum of two months. Any how I will also update u if this german officials play any other or new trick to delay the process.

for rishykesh
-------------

FYI I have completed all the formalities that is given inthe website , I have submited all the documents also attested the marriage certificate from Notrary and Mantraly( mumbai ) .

As far as I know from chennai its getting very fast I mean within 8 weeks.

Have a nice weekend

Regards
assr

Hello Rishykesh,

Thanks a lot for such a detailed analysis of the same thing.

I am living here also from past 3.5 years and in stuttgart area. Its a small place and i know the person in charge of ABH personally and she behaved also very nicely during the whole process.

I spoke about this preapproval (VorAbZuStimmung) but she said that it applies to only those who have a NE or long term residence permit. Besides being controlled by GreenCard regulations, she said it is not possible to process anything like preapproval. My certificate is already attested by STATE GOVERNMENT. How can you convince an officer from here if you can not present the girl in front or also no marriage certificate ?

I think you & your friends were simply lucky or i was full of bad luck. I think, I have done all the needed things and in correct order to process. The ABH lady had nothing to say as there was suggestions mentioned in the letter by AusWaertiges amt that the document must be verified even all my documents were attested by said authorities. I guess this is the way to legally earn some money also, i guess !! I could be wrong here !!!

Cheers !!!
Starter.

Now that is really cruel and wicked.

Why do they need a second verification by a private agency when you already have the verification done by the Govt. of India ?? Do they trust the private agency more than the Govt. of India ?? And why on earth should we bear the cost for such a thing ?? Its they who dont have faith in the verification done by Govt. of India, shouldnt they bear the cost ??

Could some lawyer out there please confirm if this second verification by private agency is really necessary ?? And if so, why are we forced to pay for it ??

@HB,
At the end of the day, you need your spouse to join you here in Germany. So it is impossible to fight a losing battle with the authorities. We can only crib and curse but the fact of the matter is ' all this takes time, money, efforts and patience'

@Deepak

I disagree with your here, why should this application procedure be termed as lossing battle. Why this procedure is different than an applying for a green card job with a letter from employer from Germany ? I know they would like to make sure somethings like legitimacy of marraige, legitimacy of spouse here in germany etc. etc. But this kind of thing like where my wife (applicant) will be going to stay during her stay. Did they really asked for the same when my employer called me for the job ? Obviously we are at the receiving end in all means, and there is hardly any point not to accept this on its face value. But i could not understand the processing time.. six months. The business conditions are so varying in our places(here too !!), six months is a good enough time for any company to make or break ?

The only thing which i wanted to do here by writing my experiences is to let somebody responsible take note of the things and make the corrective measure if possible. Rest i know the battle would be won certainly in the end.

Greetings,
Starter.

@Deepak,

I dont consider it to be a loosing battle.

We have a right to get married, and bring our wife here. There is a procedure to bring the spouse here, which is clearly mentioned on the official website.

If we dont submit all the documents or dont follow the correct procedure, then its obvious that we would have trouble. But what I dont understand is, why we have to pay and wait for their mercy, when we have correctly followed the procedure they mentioned ?

@assr

You mentioned in your previous post that you got the marriage certificate attested by the Notrary. It sounds a bit strange, because this is not needed atal. Why did you need this ?? What did the "Mantraly" write on your marriage certificate ??

@HB

At the back side of the marriage certificate there is a big red colored circle is pasted , with 25 Rs stamp and seal of Notrary.
Below the red circle, seal of the XXXXX(Advocate and NOTARY)

And the seal is
ATTESTED BY ME
( sign of the XXXXX )
Name and Address of the XXXXX
Date

The following lines are also written i.e

The signature of shri XXXXX
Notrary Mumbai is hearby certified.
( sign of the XXXXX )
section officer
Home Department
Government of Maharashtra
Mantralaya, Mumbai
Date.

Regards
assr

I applied for family reunion visa 4 weeks back.The lady in our local ABH ordered for verification of our marriage certificate.I did not attest the marriage certificate from HOME MINISTRY.I applied in chennai embassy

1,Can i know what exactly happens with this verification.

2,How much time this verification would take.

3,Will hiring a lawyer will help the whole process.

Some body who have gone through this please let me know the time frame.As i have already even bought flight tickets in novemmber.

Hope to hear from guys who have gone through verification of marriage certificate.

Cheers,Pac

Hi DuPac,

Proceedure to legalise your Marriage Certificate:

1. Notarise your certificate (by lawyer).

2. Go to Secretariat - foreign affairs dept and ask for legalisation. They will forward your notarised certificate to commissioner office for further verification.

3. Once the police verified your copy, they will send it to foregin affairs department. They will get a RED Seal.

The duration depends on how you work on this. In my case it took 3 to 4 days.

There are lot of tricks that you should know to speedify the process.

e.g If you know any police, try to get the notary from the lawyer of the same area where this police station is located.

So that this police will be much familiar with the lawyer, so they dont take much time on verifying your document.

Once you know that the document has gone to secretariat, then keep visiting the foreign affairs office for the Red seal.


All the best.

@DuPAc

Since you don't have the seal from Secretariat, your application might take a minimum of 3 months. And AFAIK, there is no way to make it faster ...

This is because the consulate would appoint some private detective agency to verify your certificates and you cannot influence them.

1,Are you sure it will take 3 months time. They will order a private verificatioon or Will just ask to get the marriage certificate atetsted.

2, My wife have applied for attestation from HOEM AFFAIRS , 3 weeks back. Still no one from police came or no answer.

This was teh mail send from consulate
A verification of your marriage certificate is required. We shall notify the applicant (your wife) in writing about the necessary process.
Please do not hestitate to contact us if you require any further information.
Kind regards



Cheers,Pac

Then it seems like you have to do the attestation.

How did your wife submitted the certificate? The police will not come home to verify, they will get the paper thru the proper channel and will send it back to secretariat.

So she should go to the Foreign affairs dept, to see the status of the document.

or to contact the commisioner of police about the status?

So i feel they might not ask for private verification, Might ask for attestation.

My wife applied for attestation via POST, She got a acknowledgement also stating we are working on the document.

I thought it might take couple of months and home affairs would notify US.


Cheers,pac

As per me, It is always better to go in person to submit the document. and you will get a chance to tell them your urgency.

In my case, i went directly to secretariat, submitted my doc. and went to commissioner office everyday to see if they sent it back to secretariat.

I understand it must be difficult for her to do everything on her own.

However you got the acknowledgement.

I would suggest you to go to the secretariat with the acknowledgement letter to get more info on the doc.

Hello,

Does it makes life easier if the certificate is verified by the state home affairs deptt ? I do not think so, i have my certificate verified by State Home Affairs deptt. even then they ordered this investigation process.

Verification certainly helps but i also heard from one victim of this circular loop that if it is attested they start this process, collect the fee and do not send anybody to verify further and after a while declare that the things are ok. Makes economic sense too !!

Greetings,
Starter

@Starter

Did you go through the verification process.
How much time did it take.

Its sounds all funny , I even booked tickets for my wife and planend my visit to india in November.I expect things to be done in one month.

Any tips dude ....if u have gone through.
whats ur email ID.

Cheers,PAc

Hello,

My verification process was from Bhopal,Madhya Pradesh so it took three days time to finish this. You need to know some set of people to finish the things faster but i did not have that many contacts. It could be even faster for you if you know some connection.

See this whole Visa Issuance process in itself is a real mess but we have hardly any thing in our hand, we just have to wait and let them decide what they do. The whole process should take somewhere three months time from submission to final approval but i know people who got their wife's visa in six months time as well. I am not trying to threaten you but i am also undergoing with the same and now convinced myself that all will take a while. I applied in June and still hanging with the official things besides i submitted all the needed papers in complete form.

I sent a mail through www.auswaertiges-amt.de Berlin and things got accelerated but as usual things got stuck for some shit reasons. You can also try your luck by writing here. It really got very fast when i written to the officer in berlin.

It would not be bad if we share our experience here in forum rather than private mail as everybody others would also know. I will write as and when i got time to do so and i would also get benefitted by any new input.

harrsshhit@gmail.com

Greetings,
Starter.

Dearl All,

Due to frustration writign this mail again.

we applied for spouse visa 9 weeks backs, Local ABH said they send a FAX for verification around 7 weeks back.

Every time my wife calls chennai consulate, Different person says different things.
first call they said thy need verification so a letter will be send with details ,second call they said no details about whats happening as nothing is mentioned about verification. third call they said contact a guy called Mr mayer as her file is send to him ,fourth call mr mayer attended and said he had no clue whats happening and nothing is written in her file.

So with this situation what should do ? should i talk to my local ABH lady.

Any inputs from any one would be great help..

more than me my wife is gettign frustrated as she wanted to study and even she got admission but visa is stuck.

Cheers,pac

Hello DuPAc,

Please send me a mail at my other mail id.. <harshit_sriATrediffmail.com> as my gmail acct is not working due to some trouble here.

I think i can help you as my work is done and my wife is joining me on coming tuesday.

Thanks a lot to all who helped me so far through this forum.

Greetings,
Starter

Starter

I have send you a email. my email id is

fiveohg at yahoo dot de

fiveohg@yahoo.de

Could you write me back.

cheers,pac

@DuPac
This is how it works in Chennai.

Man braucht viel geduld.

There are two departments - Visa dept and Consular services. The verification of marriage cert. is done by Consular Services. The visa dept. has to first request the consular services, although they sit in the same office. The Consular Services hire private detectives (Global Detective Agency among others)to do this job. The verification depends on the place/state of marriage. You should budget one month at least. The results of the verification are passed on to the visa dept. Then the visa dept. sleeps on this for 2 weeks. No one knows why and you cannot influence them to do it faster. After 2 weeks they write to the applicant to submit the passports for stamping. This letter is sent by snail mail. So you should budget time for this as well. I went thru this recently and hence the process is fresh on my mind.

Now the next challenge is get the original certificates back. The visa dept. will say that the Consular services is responsible and vice versa. Finally, some soul would come on the line and without mentioning her name tell that the certificates would go to Germany-- Why on earth - no one knows!!!!!

Hi deepak,

Have you gone through this process in chennai.

Whats your email ID. So i can get furture information.

Untill now they keep saying Mr Meyer is responsible, some lady says If ur file is with meyer we need verification.Mr meyer says he has no clue.

1, Will my wife have to deposite money and later they shart verification or automatically they will start the process.
2,If i talk to local ABH will that help.

Depeek do send ur email ID or you could mail me fiveohg@yahoo.de

Cheers,pac