Hello,

I'm hoping someone can help me with a nightmare of a situation...

My wife and I were married in Costa Rica in August 2007. At the time, our lawyer (it was a civil marriage) gave us a copy of the unofficial marriage certificate he was to file with the Civil Registry, and it had the correct date (August 11) on it. After a month or so, he told us there was an error on it and that he had to resubmit the form [NOTE: we now don't believe him, and think he may have lost the original...]. Unfortunately, when he resubmitted the form, he wrote the incorrect date for our wedding (September 8) on it, but told us it would be fixed at the Registry. Well, as you can probably guess, we just received the official marriage certificate and it has the INCORRECT DATE on it! The problem is that I was not in Costa Rica on September 8, and all of our affidavits and photos have August 11 on them...

Our incompetent-scum-of-a-lawyer is not doing anything to help because he knows this will most likely result in a suspension of his license (FYI, he actually suggested I alter my Passport so the dates line up. Oh, and he wants me to destroy my copy of the original unofficial certificate... not a chance!!!).

My wife (who is still in Costa Rica) contacted the Civil Registry and explained the problem, and they have told her that it will take EIGHT MONTHS to correct the certificate (red tape, investigation, etc.). We are devastated because that could mean a total of at least FOURTEEN more months before we are together here in the States!

So, I am tossing this out there to see if anyone has any ideas for us. For example, I am assuming that even with our photos, affadavits and other evidence that we are truly married (including our copy of the unofficial marriage certificate that was filled out at our ceremony), our K-3 process will be halted at some point due to the error on our official marriage certificate. Does anyone know if there is a legal way to plead our case with USCIS to prove that we are genuinely married and should be permitted to obtain the K-3 Visa without having to wait the 8 months for the Costa Rican government to fix our marriage certificate?

Thank you for any help anyone can provide...

~Rob

P.S. - I have NOT started any USCIS process (i.e., form I-130) yet...

Have you thought about doing a K-1 visa. It might be just as fast as waiting for your new wedding certificate. Then get married in the states or even in Costa Rica again (after you wed in the states). Could you go down and get married again? And if so, could you stay long enough to try to do a visa request in county DCF?
Also does Costa Rica have "common law" marriage laws? You can check into that at the state deptment website.

I have spoken with the Argentine Embassy and they said that minor errors are o.k. on the marriage certificate. I will find out in the next month or so as we should be getting our interview soon and we have a minor error on ours as well. I will let you know how it turns out. Unfortunately yours I feel would be a major error (like wrong name, maritial status etc).

Good luck,

Banfield

Dah! That's fraud bro/sis!
OP see if you can get an affidavit of discrepancy. Don't know about Costa Rica but LOTS do so in the Philippines.

K1 won't work. They are legally married. The Civil Registry has a record of their marriage, just the wedding date is wrong.

My fiancee is Costa Rican, so I've been there a lot of times, and there is one thing that ca very quickly speed up the process. $$$$$$ If you have the cash, you could hire another attorney or better yet, simply go down to the Registry office and get a meeting with somebody and with money ($100) visibly in hand, say "Look, I need this done ASAP. Can you help me?"

I have found that a few dollars can speed up any "official" process in Costa Rica.

hi,

I think the under the table tact like which works in most of the countries makes the files move faster... will help you in this tooo... An extra cash will be needed now to fix the problem.. that will be best solution... give some cash .. get a new attorney and tell ur wife personally to supervise the deal.. and get the certificate....

Thats all i can think of now.. the other visa solutions can be a bit complex... and the ARRIAGE CERTIFICATE is the FIRST docment USCIS or NVC or Consular Officer will seee at the consulate.

Jigi

get it fixed ASAP or you will have to answer some question from embassy.

Thank you to EVERYONE who posted replies!

Well, in case anyone is interested...

My wife and I went back-and-forth with the lawyer who screwed up the Marriage Certificate process in Costa Rica, and he again tried to get me to mail him my Passport so his "friend" at the airport could stamp it to show that I was actually in CR on the date printed on our Marriage Cert. I don't think so! When he realized we were going to file an official complaint against him with the CR government, he decided to help us, and has begun the process of getting our Marriage Cert reprinted with the correct date. And, yes, my wife and I are in contact with the Civil Registry to make sure this is in the works.

Well, since it could take up to 6 months to have a new Marriage Cert printed, here is what I've done. The lawyer gave us copies of his "Protocolo", which is the official ledger of his office's legal proceedings. It shows the description of our marriage, the correct (Aug. 11) date, and the signature of my wife and I as well as of two witnesses. In addition, we have a copy of the letter the lawyer wrote to the Civil Registry when he filed his request to have our Marriage Cert. amended.

So, on Jan. 12, I mailed in my I-130 packet, with all of the above evidence and an explanatory letter, and I'm now waiting and crossing my fingers. It has been over 4 weeks, and I don't know if I should be nervous that I haven't heard anything. I know they received my packet on Jan. 14 (via Return Receipt), but USCIS hasn't cashed my check yet. Is that normal?

Again, thank you to everyone for your support! This site is great - helps me feel a little less stressed about the whole crazy process...

I have some minor errors on the marriage certificate, our names are correct, our date of wedding and our identifications also, I hope have no problem in the interview, i cannot fix the erros now because in the office of record they are in strike. ,,,I will do the same of you call in the embassy for ask...

Hello i dont know know if you have the same law of marriages like what we have here in the philippines but i just wanna give some idea of what solution we made in our marriage certificate there was a mistake on it ...the letter d of my name was gone but in our original or certified true copy from the local registral was all correct they said it was typographical error...i was really frustrated but what we did was we filed pettition from our local registral and sent it to our national statistic office it take like one to two months from filing
so maybe you should ask some information in your local registral office what you should do ..i hope this will be helpful to you.......

Few $$$ will work, this happen every where, my case and my co-worker case is the same, when they gave me the marriage certificate, my birthday was incorrect but I returned and had it fixed right there in 1 week, of course with few extra $$$. My advise, contact directly with the authorized person in the Justice Department ( vietnam) who take care the case to fix it.
But obviously, that is pissed of paying money over somebody fault.