Updated Korean Marriage relations certificate

[barlowe]

Hi,

My wife and I are currently going through getting her PR Card to come to Canada from South Korea. We received and email from the CIC requesting:
Updated Korean Marriage relations certificate and Family relations certificate including information on your marriage registered (must be issued by dong or gu office in Korea)

We don't have anything from Korea about our marriage since we got married in Canada and are planning on getting married in Korea after she gets her PR card. We have already sent them a copy of our Canadian marriage certificate, should this not be enough?

Any help is GREATLY appreciated!

 

[barlowe]

Just an update. CIC in Canada didn't know anything about it and in Korea they wouldn't answer any questions. We found out that we could get our marriage registered while we are in Canada though. My wife's sister had to take our original Canadian marriage certificate to the Korean office along with scans of our passports and registered for us.

As well, since we didn't register within 6 months of the marriage in Canada we had to pay a small fine which gets bigger with every month.

 

[stevelo]

Why would they fine you for not reporting? How much was the fine? And also, why would CIC care about a korean marriage cert if you had the Canadian one? That's so bizarre.

 

[barlowe]

Very bizzarre. I argued that the marriage met the criteria of being legal in Canada but CIC just kept requesting it with no response to my argument. The fine was about 150 cad, we registered about 10 months after getting married. As to why they fine people, I don't know.

On the bright side we got the COPR today. They started processing us on July 31 and it was a week after we finally sent in the aforementioned forms that they sent the COPR.

 

[AnaMaria]

I think it is requirement for Korean law. If a Korean get married in another country, they will also have to register in Korea to be recognized locally. This way double marriage (marrying to someone while still being married to someone else) can be prevented easily. Otherwise, they would have two conflicting statuses; single in Korea but married in other country. The Canadian marriage (in this case) is recognized internationally but not in the local offices unless it was reported. It is probably hard to argue as, I believe, it is written in Korean law since you are dealing with a Korean.

Anyhow, congrats on COPR!