Question for those of you with Spouse/Permanent Visas

[Primarch]

I just passed my third anniversary last week, so now I am eligible for a permanent visa. Currently I have a normal working visa having never updated it to a spouse visa, largely due to laziness on my part.
I have the documents to apply for the Spouse/Permanent visa but I am a little unsure of one of the requirements. The form says I need: A certificate of marriage from Japan, A certificate of marriage from my own country (the UK).
The thing is, I never registered my marriage in the UK, so I have no documents from the UK government. I am not sure if this is a case of needing both documents or just the one from the country where I got married. Anyone have any ideas or experience of this? I honestly can't see why my status in the UK would effect my status in Japan, but you know how it is with bureaucracy.

Thanks,
P.

[The Other Dave]

I was in the same boat - I got married here, said marriage is automatically officially recognized by the US, so I don't have an American marriage certificate. The application (for the spousal visa - haven't upgraded to permanent yet) worked fine with just the Japanese paperwork.

[me_in_japan]

You don't need a UK certificate. I can say that categorically cos I don't have one, yet was on a spousal visa for about 5 years. I don't know how things will be going from a work visa straight to a perma resident status, but it can't hurt to ask.

It's worth pointing out that Permanent Resident is a status, not a visa. This is relevant because it means it's a different department that deals with it, and that department does not really communicate with the visa department. When I applied for perma res status I really needed it (to get a mortgage) and I had to delay any and all progress on my house waiting for the immigration folks to get their butts in gear. My advice would be to apply for both a spousal visa and a perma res status. The visa will come quickly, the status will take upwards of 6 months, if you get it at all (only reason I can think they wouldn't give it woul be the fact that you're not on a spousal visa already, but that's speculation on my part.)

Ps it's also always worth asking your wife to look up the same information in Japanese as you research in English. Even on the same government websites the information doesn't always match up, and the office always goes with the J-version. Tbh, the j-version tends to be more specific and easier to understand, assuming you can read it in the first place.

[job]

I don't know about the UK, but for the USA what we did was create a translation and have it notarized at the local consulate. It is as ToD says. The USA recognizes the Japanese marriage contract and the only thing we optionally did (my wife was concerned about future Green Card applications) was to create the translation. We did it ourselves and drew up the documents at home.

Maybe that might help.

[ashmie]

If you are looking to buy then permanent visa is best.
Also funnily enough the spouse visa requires more paperwork proving your marriage etc but is quicker to come through than the permanent.
I was advised to use at least two years of my spouse visa before upgrading to permanent.

[ashmie]

Our marriage and sons birth isn't registered in the UK either shouldn't be a prob.
In the UK I'm technically single. Wahey
Joke