My fiance (JP national) and I (UK national) went to the city hall yesterday to pick up a blank 婚姻届け. While we were there we asked the staff to just check our documents to confirm that we had everything we needed.
They told us that they need a 婚姻要件具備証明書 (Affidavit/Affirmation of marital status). Which I do have. I went to the UK embassy in Tokyo to obtain it a couple weeks ago. However the Japanese title of the document is 婚姻要件確約書. So the city hall staff said they couldn’t accept it.
The 婚姻要件確約書 *IS* the 婚姻要件具備証明書 that the UK gives. They are the *same thing*.
We tried to explain this to the city hall staff but they just kept saying “the rules say you need a 婚姻要件具備証明書 but this says it’s a 婚姻要件確約書 so we can’t accept it”.
I don’t really know what to do. Have any other Brits encountered a similar issue when they got married in Japan. What did you do to resolve it?
8 comments
Sorry to hear of the troubles. I’ll be doing the same thing in a couple of weeks so keen to hear people’s answers about this. Where do you live?
They’re being arseholes. Go to a different city hall, you don’t need to live in the specific area to do the application. Me and my wife applied in the city where we first met and it was fine.
“Computer says no” is so strong in Japan.
How about going to the embassy and asking what to do?
So as far as I understand, you have the English official document and a certified? notarised? (sorry, don’t know the English equivalent..) Japanese translation.
In my city, they actually did not require a certified translation and said any translation would be fine, as long as it states the date and the name and signature of the translator. So I just did it myself and it was accepted without problems.
If they want a certified one, maybe you could talk with whoever translated it in the first place. They might be able to either reissue it or at least point you and the city hall to any relevant laws or anything that says that it’s the same thing. (I had this problem with city hall in my home country and the translator of my partner’s koseki was able to help, as that obviously wasn’t his first encounter of that issue.)
Alternatively, you could go to 法務局 and ask them for advice. Had a great experience with them, as well, as they were fascinated by my issue and actually solved it with raw logic (there’s a separate legal status of “never been married before” in my home country, which does not exist in Japan, so any Japanese documents have to be translated as “not married”, which does not exclude the possibility that you’ve been married in the past).
When I got married to my husband we had to go to the UK embassy and do the documents.
We then had to **wait a month** for the embassy to display our intention to marry on their noticeboard. Afterwards, they sent the required document to get married. The documents we received on the day were not the ones we needed for the marriage paper work.
​
Also I was required to bring my passport, birth certificate with translation and the documents the embassy sent a month after our visit.
How far up the ladder were you talking to? In our case, the we had to go through two layers of managers/supervisors because the first two individuals we spoke too were oblivious to the process (in fact, the first person admitted she was a summer intern and that international marriages was not in the training). Sometimes staff either just don’t know because they don’t encounter these things commonly, or are afraid to do anything off-book, so to speak.
I really hate city hall. Not just in Japan but everywhere I have to deal with them.
Show them this link: [https://tilojp.com/service/japanvisa/japan_family-visa/jp-uk/](https://eightlinks.link/marriage/england/) It will explain that in the UK, they have two kinds of 婚姻要件具備証明書. One is a civil affirmation (確約書) for sworn statements, and the other is an affidavit (宣言書) for religious oaths. 婚姻要件具備証明書 is just what they call the document Japan issues for its nationals when they get married to foreigners outside of Japan.
The lowest ranking clerks (read 新人) man the 窓口 so if you’re not getting through to them, ask for their 上司 or 課長／部長.