This is just my little tale of woe that might help others who were in my position.
My father was in armed forces and as a result I lived in Germany for a time.
I lived there from the age of 14 1/2 and returned aged just under 16 years and 11 months.
Now the information you'll read on the London Embassy website and in the packet
you receive says something like...
Police certificates are required for each visa application aged 16 years or older. A separate certificate is required from the police of each country in which the applicant has lived for twelve months or more after the age of 16; the period is six months if country of birth or current nationality.
Another bit of text in the checklist wasn't so clear.
So, I thought, I come in just under the 12 months so I don't need a Germany police certificate.
I wasn't sure what to do, but thinking the process of obtaining a Germany police certificate could be time-consuming and a possible cause of delay I decided to call the (premium rate) Visa helpline. Although unsure they tried to help and finally gave me the answer I wanted to hear: I didn't need one.
To complete the checklist my fiancée needed to send me a packet of information. She had done that. On the day I had my medical in London everything seemed to have gone fine and the doctor mentioned the interview should be within 4 weeks of the medical. I called my fiancée in the states and we were optimistic. I arrived home from London and saw the packet my fiancée had sent had arrived. The day was perfect.
But then I saw a letter from the US Embassy in London. I opened it and read it:
it was a request to obtain a Germany police certificate.
****ing hell! ****! ****ing ********! ****!
I said something like the above. Very loudly.
Having read that it could take 4 weeks to process the Germany police certificate request and adding time to get the necessary certifications and translation I was thinking at that it would cause a 2 month delay.
This was in mid-late May. My wife is a teacher and we wanted to marry while she was on vacation so we could have some time together before she went back to work. Also, I wanted my family to come over for the wedding and since I wasn't used to driving, being a commuter using public transport and Maine not having any significant public transport it would be much easier if my wife were on vacation.
So, at that point I was thinking that we had no chance of my moving there during summer vacation so we arranged for my fiancée to visit the UK in July. It would have been much cheaper for me to go over to the US and stay with her, but I didn't have enough prorated annual leave left for a whole week and my circumstances meant that I couldn't justify asking for unpaid leave.
Naturally I was feeling very low and very foolish for not having played safe and applied for the certificate.
I didn't want to take a chance and send the checklist off without having everything on it. It asks you to sign saying that you have everything and there was no way I'd put my signature to a lie.
And so I began the process of obtaining a translated police certificate from Germany. I used the German London embassy website and telephoned the Germany embassy in London to get the information I needed
To obtain the certificate I needed to :
(1) Get a certified application form.
(2) Send the form to the German Justice department in Bonn.
(3) Wait for the certificate back
(4) Get a certified translation.
(1) Get a certified application form.
I didn't have to go to the embassy. They have a number of solicitors around the country who are Honorarkonsul.
They have the ability to certify documents for legal recognition in Germany. The nearest and easiest was at a company in Leeds. The German embassy in London can tell you where your nearest Honorarkonsul is.
So I made a morning appointment with the company, taking my passport with me. A legal secretary had the signed, stamped form ready for me to fill in. I showed her my passport and paid a fee. It was something like #15.
(2) Send the form to the German Justice department in Bonn.
A had a cheque, envelope and stamp ready and I sent the form to Bonn address.
The fee was #11, the official sterling equivalent of the 13 euros. You can send a cheque from a UK bank
in pounds sterling.
It cost a couple of pounds to send it, I think. I could have paid more and saved a couple of days, but given the delay I was expecting I didn't think it would be worth the cost of expediting the posting.
(3) Wait for the certificate back.
I think it was about two weeks after posting the application that I received an envelope from Germany.
The response was so quick that I thought I must have made a stupid mistake with the form or cheque.
But no. It appeared to be a certificate. Keine Eintragung. No entry. :-)
(4) Get a certified translation.
I contacted a couple of the translators listed on the website. One wasn't available but another was.
(By the way, don't phone her number at night. I was expecting an answering machine and she answered and was annoyed . Oops!
)The next day morning I phoned the translator and she told me to send a copy of the certificate and cash or postal order with the fee. I think it was #10, but I'm not sure.
I sent the copy "signed for". That was a waste of time. It still hadn't appeared online on the Royal Mail website when I received the returned translation. I lived with my parents and had them phone me at work when it arrived and got them to check that it contained a translation.
I then immediately phoned the solicitors in Leeds to arrange an appointment to have the translation certified. I was able to get an appointment for the next morning. It was another #10 or #15 pounds. As instructed by the translator, I took both the translation and the original certificate with me to the solicitors to prove that the translation was of the same document. The legal secretary attached a certification to the translation and stamped it.
(Just a note: when several sheets are stapled together you must keep them stapled together for the document to remain legal. A folded corner and stamp across the staple will show that they are associated. I was careful about this.)
With the translation in my possession I was then able to sign the checklist and send it to the embassy.
From receiving the letter requesting a Germany police certificate to sending the signed checklist had taken 3 weeks exactly, and that included a day lost to a Bank Holiday.
Our hope of being able to marry during the summer vacation was restored and sure enough I got my visa in time,
thanks also to my employers, with whom I'd been open about my visa process, allowing me to leave with less than 4 weeks notice.
The lessons learned:
(1) If you aren't sure whether you'll need the police certificate apply for one anyway. It'll save the future delay.
(2) Don't bother with the visa helpline.
(3) Germans really are efficient!
C, happily married in Maine
, 
so I think it'll last a long time. 