Love knows no boundaries; even if they are different races, they can love each other until they marry and can start a family together and they grow old together, but some people wonder what will happen if we decide to live with foreigners. Is it difficult to register a marriage legally?
Even if your partner is a foreigner, you can easily register your marriage in Thailand; however, you must go through the process of preparing documents and processing a specific marriage registration that is only slightly different from the registration of a Thai couple.
That is, document preparation, translation, and one of the most important steps is legalization procedures.
The Firstchoice Translation Center would like to introduce foreigners to marriage registration and the legalization of English-Thai documents, both of which are simple to do.
- Do I need to register the marriage with my foreign couple?
- Things to get to know and agree on before marrying a foreigner
- Legalization procedures of the English-Thai documents for marriage registration
- Request a letter of single status certification and a copy of your passport from your embassy.
- Selecting a specialized translation agency
- To bring documents to the Translation Center for translation into Thai.
- To bring documents for legalization with the Department of Consular Affairs by authorizing the translation agency to act on your behalf.
- To prepare the required document and make an appointment with the district office.
- First Choice Translation Center, a comprehensive translation and legalization of documents for marriage registration.
Do I need to register the marriage with my foreign couple?
Before we get into the procedure of legalizing documents in English to Thai in order to register marriage, let’s look at whether we really need to register marriage with a foreign couple, because some people may believe that if they love and trust each other, they should be able to live together as a couple and there is no need to process marriage registration, but we would like to say that marriage registration is more beneficial than you thought.
A joint marriage registration proves that you are the real couple, husband and wife; however, if a third hand enters the scene, you have the right to sue because you are a legitimate lover; in other words, from now on, whatever you do or conduct, you will have the co-right.
For example, you have the right to jointly manage marital assets (assets acquired during marriage) and to sue the person who caused your spouse’s death for damages or compensation.
When you have children together, the children automatically become legitimate children and can use their father’s surname; it also affects property inheritance.
Things to get to know and agree on before marrying a foreigner
We now have a better understanding of the significance of marriage registration; even if your partner is of a different nationality, you must still register the marriage. Marriage registration, by the way, is an important part of life because this is the agreement to spend the rest of your life with only one person. As a result, before registering a marriage together, we should be aware of and agree on the following points with our partner
Planning life after marriage
Life after marriage cannot be decided after marriage. Life is about early planning so that each party knows whether the future goals of both couples are the same or not, including life after marriage planning to prove whether the couple will be able to live together or not after registering marriage or marriage.
Both couples’ status will change, and their lives will be altered in terms of responsibilities, duties, where they will live, expenses, and having children together. These issues must be clearly agreed upon in order for the couple to live happily together after marriage registration.
Other party’s assets
This issue is not about determining how much money our partner has, but about agreeing on what is personal property that we have before marriage because property acquired after marriage is considered marital property with joint rights, but property acquired before marriage is considered private property. If you have any issues, you do not have to share them with your spouse or share the responsibilities.
Registration of bigamy
This should be a source of concern for many people because bigamy can lead to the problem of not having the right to be a legal spouse because the law protects those who register marriage in the first place.
Regarding the second marriage registration, which is bigamy, it must be void and psychologically impactful because bigamy registration indicates that the other party is not the only one for them.
Notification of birth when having children
If you have a child together, the birth notice must be completed. Even if there is no child registration, it is also possible to declare who the child’s father or mother is, but we recommend that both of you register the marriage because it will be more convenient for birth notification.
However, if the other party previously registered marriage with an ex-couple without filing a divorce, your child will become an illegitimate child immediately. The child will lose legal rights such as inheritance as a result of this.
Expenses for marriage registration document procedures
To prepare and process the documents necessary for the marriage to be completed may cost a significant amount of money, and there is no law or act stating which party is responsible for such costs. As a result, the couple should clearly agree on this issue, even if it is a minor one. It is best to talk about and agree on it together first so that it does not turn into a feud later.
Legalization procedures of the English-Thai documents for marriage registration
Now we come to one of the most important processes: if we have a foreign lover and want to legally register the marriage, we must go through the legalization process. Please follow us here below for more information on the procedure.
Request a letter of single status certification and a copy of your passport from your embassy.
This step required you to request a letter of single status certification from your embassy in Thailand, as well as your passport.
Selecting a specialized translation agency
Once we have the documents listed above, we can look for a translation center that specializes in providing translation services because the documents obtained by your spouse must be in a language other than Thai. Before submitting documents for marriage registration in Thailand, you must translate the documents from another language into Thai.
As a result, we recommend that you use a translation center to translate your document rather than translating it yourself in order to translate it correctly and in practice without having to edit or reduce the error many times.
To bring documents to the Translation Center for translation into Thai.
Following receipt of the letter of single status and a copy of your passport, all documents must be completely translated into Thai with the translation center.
To bring documents for legalization with the Department of Consular Affairs by authorizing the translation agency to act on your behalf.
Before submitting the document for legalization to the Department of Consular Affairs, you must first authorize the translation center to act on your behalf.
Even after all documents have been completely translated into Thai, they are still not ready to be submitted for marriage registration because they must first be legalized with the Department of Consular Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which can be done by yourself or, if someone feels inconvenient and is unsure what to do, the translation center can submit the documents for legalization with the Department of Consular Affairs on your behalf. For this step, you need to establish a power of attorney and delegate it to the translation center.
To prepare the required document and make an appointment with the district office.
It should complete the document and then schedule a marriage registration appointment at the district office.
After preparing all required documents and making an appointment at the district office as prescribed in clause 2, it may register the marriage at the district office or anywhere that is most convenient between the official working hours; from 8.30 to 15.30 hrs. Our translation center also offers services for the described steps.
First Choice Translation Center, a comprehensive translation and legalization of documents for marriage registration.
If you intend to live with a foreign lover and want to complete your marriage registration but are unsure where to find a translation center to assist with translating and certifying documents, you can use the Firstchoice Translation Center.
Because we have over ten years of experience in document translation and also provide legalization services for marriage registration. Please come to us; we can provide you with a comprehensive service for marriage registration.
First Choice Translation Center provides all types of documents into Thai, English translation, and more than 30 other languages around the world by expert translators with more than 10 years of experience and at least 50,000 translated documents. Furthermore, we offer legalization with high quality, on time, and at a reasonable price.
For more information, please contact Firstchoice Translation Center via LINE OFFICIAL ACCOUNT: https://page.line.me/fc2009?openQrModal=true or Visit our
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