Marriage in other country and return to HU

Hi Wongchingling,

Welcome to the Forum.

Assuming you get married in Hong Kong, I suspect that as both Hong Kong and Hungary are signatories to the Hague Convention 1961, in order for it to be recognised, any marriage document you get will need to be "apostilled" by the issuing Government and then notarised by a local representative (normally a lawyer); .  My advice is to check with a Hong Kong lawyer.

I know my marriage to a HU citizen was recorded at our local city hall district office.
I had to have my American marriage certificate translated into HUngarian to receive  my resident card at Budapest immigration services. Hope this info helps.

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

I know my marriage to a HU citizen was recorded at our local city hall district office.
I had to have my American marriage certificate translated into HUngarian to receive  my resident card at Budapest immigration services. Hope this info helps.

Marilyn is right.  You have to register a marriage solemnised abroad and you need to have the paperwork as an official translation attached to the other paperwork.   It's a lot easier to translate stuff from English.  I believe it's more expensive to translate some languages than others.

If you have a British passport, then obviously you don't need to prove anything as you'd have EU rights in Hungary.  I have no idea how other UK passports like British Overseas Citizens (BOC) or British Subjects manage although if I remember correctly, if you have right of abode in the UK, then I think you might be able to actually swap passports as I think the UK government wants to phase out BOC passports.  British subject - no idea.  Bit tangential but you could consider looking into it.

Getting married is a lot faster in the UK for sure and a lot easier. HK, no real idea but probably signatory to the UN convention  (i.e. same as UK).

Thank your for all of your replies 

It seems that there would be still a lot of hassle (e.g. translation for document even if it is written in English, paperwork...) to get the permission to stay in HU even if we are married aboard. 

wongchingling wrote:

Thank your for all of your replies 

It seems that there would be still a lot of hassle (e.g. translation for document even if it is written in English, paperwork...) to get the permission to stay in HU even if we are married aboard. 

There's no way to avoid the translation.     Things like birth certificates are now also provided in multiple languages on the same sheet - English, German and French.  The hassle of translation is not that expensive, even if it's still a hassle.

You'd have to do it whatever you are doing because Hungarian is the national language.

(side note:  much to my annoyance - and my own laziness - despite there being a significant ethnic German population,  German can only be used in some official activities but everything paperwork wise has to be in Hungarian).

Not a big deal to get your marriage cert. translated into Hungarian.
They will let you know where to go for the official translation office.
When I had mine translated, they only had one official place where they would except translations from.
The immigration office sent us there.
They charged different prices depending on what language or country the cert. was from.
Long story, my husband got a $50. rebate because he had a screaming fit when he found out the price difference between a US/English translation and a Romanian one.
Took around 2 weeks for them to translate and give back the papers.

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

.....They charged different prices depending on what language or country the cert. was from.  Long story, my husband got a $50. rebate because he had a screaming fit when he found out the price difference between a US/English translation and a Romanian one.
Took around 2 weeks for them to translate and give back the papers.

Mr Marilyn did well there. 

As in all things government, the price for official paperwork bears no resemblance to the work is involved. Utter rip off.

Imagine trying to get some less well known languages done like Burmese to Hungarian.  Don't know what they'd charge for that - presumably at least double.  Burmese to English then English to Hungarian.

Yes, I knew that $50 rebate from your past posts

Really hate such kind of matter(no fixed price), cannot imagine it happens in governmental offices

wongchingling wrote:

Yes, I knew that $50 rebate from your past posts

Really hate such kind of matter(no fixed price), cannot imagine it happens in governmental offices

Many governments do this in different ways.

For example, citizens or full time residents, who have already been tapped to run that government office by paying local and national taxes, pay a smaller fee at a government office for some services than a non-citizen or non-residents who has so far not contributed anything to run that office.

Or seniors pay less for government services than non-seniors.

I personally see nothing wrong with reasonable reasons like that. If one has a problem with a fee, one can ask for a reduction and give a reason why. The fee might be reduced if the request is reasonable. And even if there is no fee reduction granted, it never hurts to at least try to get one if your have a good reason.

Oh sorry klsallee, I think you misunderstand my meaning because of my wrong expression. I just mentioned about Marilyn Tassy's case about charging different fee for non-citizens with different nationalities.

Surely, it is absolutely fair for the government to charge the different fee between citizens and non-citizen.

wongchingling wrote:

....Surely, it is absolutely fair for the government to charge the different fee between citizens and non-citizen.

It's not fair at all.  The government should provide equitable treatment.  For any paperwork which is the SAME for any citizen (of any country) then the fees should be the same.

Think we Americans just don't understand the concept of treating people differently because of their country of birth or their citizenship.
We really do have the same prices at least at all gov. offices for everyone.
A private, small business in the US may have their own tricky side deals and prejudices but not any official gov. offices. In fact they usually bend over backwards to help people who don't know the ropes.
My son's long time ex girlfriend was from Japan, she was always getting messed over by auto mechanics, overcharges, fixed the wrong things or did a lousy job on her car.
My husband did a big overhaul on her car when we arrived to visit in Vegas. He looked at the work done by her old mechanic and got really angry how they could do that to her.
We couldn't figure out if they mistreated her because she was Asian or because she was a single women bringing in her car alone.
Any business in the US that is regulated  must follow strict rules and not discriminate . I worked with the public in my jobs in large crop. owned beauty salons and then in casinos. They followed all the laws by the letter, it was more important to treat everyone equal then to risk a fine for not doing so.
Of course we are not in the US now so one has to except that the rules no longer really apply all the time.

wongchingling wrote:

Oh sorry klsallee, I think you misunderstand my meaning because of my wrong expression. I just mentioned about Marilyn Tassy's case about charging different fee for non-citizens with different nationalities.

Surely, it is absolutely fair for the government to charge the different fee between citizens and non-citizen.

I do not know when the above occurred, but now Hungary and Romania are both in the EU. So one may consider them each are EU "citizens". Americans are not. So it still works -- citizens versus non-citizens. It just depends on how you define "citizen".

But to me that is not really relevant, since countries can have bilateral and differing agreements between themselves and third party countries as well (less so for EU countries). So there needs to be no "standard" rights or costs for non-citizens coming from different countries.

Marilyn Tassy wrote:

Think we Americans just don't understand the concept of treating people differently because of their country of birth or their citizenship.

It is more free market oriented in the USA. So total prices can in fact actually differ for different applicants depending on the indirect costs rather than as a direct cost. Bottom line is, no real standard costs to do the entire process.

For example, in the USA the immigration service lets you find and pay for your own translator, rather than requiring you to go to the government translator as in Hungary. But if the immigration office in the USA questions the translation, they can ask for another one (increases your costs). In Hungary, the government translator is not questioned by the other offices, so it is a one payment only requirement. Of course, if the government translator makes a mistake......