Certified vs. notarized copies of non-English/French originals.

[Nasi Lemak]

Hi folks. I think I have read every thread in which this topic was discussed and still cannot find the answer. We will be submitting my wife's application inland. She is a Macedonian citizen and our marriage certificate, along with a few other documents, is in Macedonian.

In the inland guide, (5289ETOC), it states:

Any document that is not in English or French must be accompanied by:

the English or French translation; and
an affidavit from the person who completed the translation; and
a certified copy of the original document.

Nowhere on the page does it give a guideline for certified copies. Does this mean a simple notarized copy with the generic stamp? Or are they referring to the guideline listed below in the outland application?


The outland guide (3900ETOC) actually states the instructions for a certified copy:

Certified true copies

To have a photocopy of a document certified, an authorized person must compare the original document to the photocopy and must print the following on the photocopy:

“I certify that this is a true copy of the original document”,
the name of the original document,
the date of the certification,
his or her name,
his or her official position or title, and
his or her signature.

Did anyone who submitted their inland application get their foreign language documents certified with the line, "I certify this document ___(title of document)_____"? Or just the notary/lawyer stamp? I would imagine the former is incredibly hard to do in our case, since the original documents are in Cyrillic and the person doing the certifying likely wouldn't even be able to write the name of the document.

 

[Shahmed]

Hi folks. I think I have read every thread in which this topic was discussed and still cannot find the answer. We will be submitting my wife's application inland. She is a Macedonian citizen and our marriage certificate, along with a few other documents, is in Macedonian.

In the inland guide, (5289ETOC), it states:

Nowhere on the page does it give a guideline for certified copies. Does this mean a simple notarized copy with the generic stamp? Or are they referring to the guideline listed below in the outland application?


The outland guide (3900ETOC) actually states the instructions for a certified copy:

Did anyone who submitted their inland application get their foreign language documents certified with the line, "I certify this document ___(title of document)_____"? Or just the notary/lawyer stamp? I would imagine the former is incredibly hard to do in our case, since the original documents are in Cyrillic and the person doing the certifying likely wouldn't even be able to write the name of the document.

Nasi Lemak, it can work both way whether you just get a lawyers' stamp or you may get it certified. to be on a safer side, please add following text:

Translated by ---------(Notary/Lawyer name):
The translation of this FORM from ------- to English/French has been examined carefully and found correct. Hence this certificate to be TRUE.

 

[Nasi Lemak]

Thanks Shahmad. Much appreciated.

 

[Nasi Lemak]

So we just got our certified copy of the marriage certificate. The certified copy has the info on the back that states "this is a true copy of ___ + ____ marriage certificate", and goes on to describe the document.

The only issue is that the statement is in Macedonian. Will this be ok? Or do we now need a translation of the statement?

 

[Shahmed]

So we just got our certified copy of the marriage certificate. The certified copy has the info on the back that states "this is a true copy of ___ + ____ marriage certificate", and goes on to describe the document.

The only issue is that the statement is in Macedonian. Will this be ok? Or do we now need a translation of the statement?

I ll recommend to translate it in English/French to avoid any unnecessary delays.

 

[Nasi Lemak]

Thanks, will do that. Better safe than sorry, I guess.