The NSO in the Philippines

[Jenky]

I have just got married to my wife in the Philippines and have applied for the settlement visas of her and my step daughter just two weeks ago. So now we join the line and wait! And I would like to say that this forum has been a great help with lots of sound and relevant advice. Long may it continue!

Just want to share you this story. I travelled out to marry my wife just after her annulment came through. I had already got my CNI from the UK but due to a misunderstanding on my part We only had an NSO copy of her annotated marriage contract that showed it was annulled. We did not have a cenomar. So the embassy would not give me my local CNI. So we had to apply cenomar from the NSO which can take two weeks and as it was being done over the xmas period I thought that our chance of getting married before i had to return home was gone. As it turned out the cenomar came in just one week and we got married with just four days to spare!

But the story is that my wife applied cenomar over the phone and I made a seperate application on the internet just in case her application was left in somebodies inbox.

We received both of the cenomars from the NSO on the same day. The one she got had a record of her previous marriage (as you would expect) but the one i got had no record of any marriage!

I questioned this with the attourney who handled our annullment case. She said the NSO make many mistakes! Indeed she has an American client now who applied cenomar for his fiancee which came back no recorded marriage. So he went ahead and married her and applied the settlement visa. The embassy did their own checks and it came back with a recorded marriage for her! So he is left with a bigamus marriage and a visa refusal all because somebody at the NSO did not dig deeply enough! ouch!

[Mrs.JMajor]

another goverment sector being s***

[Mrs Daddy]

oh dear!watta shame...!It makes you wonder what happen to that american?

[Jay&Zobel]

that's really OUTCHYYYYY...

Hope things will be ok with you & your wife... Just submit the one without RECORD OF MARRIAGE, the annulment papers of previous marriage, your new wedding certificate with pictures...

Bless you!

[Jenky]

Hi Jay and Zobel my best wishes to you and thanks for your support with the visa applications. I feel that our application is strong as I am ok financially, we have a five year old child and have been in our relationship for almost 7 years now with my wife already having had three visits to the UK on visitor visas. But you never know what could happen as the future of two adults and two young girls will boil down to the opinion of an ECO and his boss based on the quality of the papers that we have submitted to them.

It really is nervous waiting for something that will shape the rest of your life whatever the outcome. But my advice to everybody who has applied is just dont get stressed, keep the relationship strong and carry on as normal. Your time will come. We are all doing nothing wrong never forget that! all that we want is to be beside our loved ones. Its tough being seperated. I know that more than most when you are half a world away when your five year old daughter says on the phone daddy come back here now please.

And on another subject if we all think that the spouse/fiancee visa application was/is stressfull then just wait until you have to try and find a school in the UK for two primary school students as i am having to do right now. When you cant give them a firm date of their arrival here in the UK and you are told that you have missed the "last deadline" for applications for the school term in September! Even if we get the visas I have dark visions of my daughter and step daughter going to seperate schools miles apart!

But back to the reply. The right thing to do is to submit the cenomar WITH a recorded marriage for my wife!!! Why? because she has had a previous marriage recorded with the NSO of this there is no doubt. A cenomar from the NSO should show ANY previous marriage that your partner has ever had recorded with them.

Then when the annullment is over you will be able to get from the NSO a copy of the "annotated marriage contract" of the annulled marriage and it will say on it that this marriage has been declared null and void etc etc. Then when applying the visa you should submit both this and the cenomar to prove that the marriage recorded on the cenomar has indeed been annulled.