Problems with German admin

I am experiencing serious problems with the German administration.
They will not accept that I am married and that therefore, I use my husband’s name. The problem stems from when we went to register my son’s birth at the Standesamt. The office worker there could not cope with the fact that in my passport, my maiden name comes before my married name as in any French passport. I have never bothered to ask for a British passport :$ , much to my regret now. We provided them with our marriage certificate (OK, it is in French but any 10 year old with knowledge of our alphabet could work out what it says) AND our family book.Well, that was not enough and on the birth certificate we now have my maiden name and it says we are just living together!!! It’s ridiculous. In Britain, nobody has ever questioned my name nor have they asked for translation of my marriage certificate because it is so obvious what it is. My first son’s birth certificate states my married name.
It did not bother me that much at first, I was just annoyed at that stupid cow but now it is creating me problems. My Gemeinde has contacted me telling me that there is a disparity between what I’ve told them about my name and status and what the Standesamt tells them and that I have to provide proof of who I really am. They want no less than a letter from the French Consulate before the 21 may (fat chance!). They also want an official translation of my marriage certificate. Anyone knows a French/ German translator?
I have in the meantime applied for a British passport for my son as we want to go to Britain in the next few weeks. If the birth certificate causes the passport office to refuse to give us the passport I am going to explode.

Oh dear! How frustrating!! :doh:
This is not what you need when you've just had a baby.Can you talk to someone at the French Consulate? Maybe they could fax something over quicker? or are they as bad? Hope you get it sorted out.

This probably does not help you much, but I experienced problems when I came to register for my residency permit. I renewed my passport last year shortly before we came to live in Germany. We got married at Christmas, but as it costs about 67 euro to change my passport, I decided not to bother and keep my maiden name. Big mistake!

Off we went to register me with passport and marriage certificate, only to be told that as it does not show that my name is the same as my husbands, it is not proof that I am married, and as the marriage certificate does not have a stamp on it, they would not accept it as an official document. Could we get it stamped!

Rang up the British Consulate, who said words to the effect of "not again". They sent me a letter to take with me to explain that in the UK the marriage cert shows wifes maiden name only, that you can be married and keep your maiden name, and it is quite normal behaviour. We duly trotted off, with said documents and a German friend to help with translation.

This time, the question was "How do we know that she really wants to keep her maiden name???" German friend answered, she is sitting here, try asking her. Unbelieveable...

Hopefully your Consulate have also had prior experience of your problems, and have a letter they have prepared earlier for just such an occasion!

Bon chance

Thanks, it helps to know it's not just me then, I was starting to take it personally. I'll try to contact my consulate again, I keep giving up because I am always 11th in the queuing system.

It's not just you. I know a Finnish woman who had the exact same problem - in her case the objection was that her translated Finnish marriage certificate didn't have a place of marriage on, unlike a German certificate. REsult they wouldn't let them register their child until they had assembled a vast array of affadavits, letters from embassy, certified translations etc. The consulates know how bad it is and I'm sure they'll help you.

Sorry forgot to add- the Standesamt should have a list of certified translators. It's expensive but unfortunately often necessary to use one from this list. If they're unhelpful ring the nearest French consulate - they are bound to have a list.

Mireille, if you're looking for a French-German translator, I'd suggest going to the BDÜ (Bundesverband der Dolmetscher und Übersetzer) website at www.bdue.de and looking through their database. You're bound to find someone there.

reggie

Reggie, I really like your signature. I feel so annoyed with this admin people that I might turn into Basil! Thanks for the tip.

you can go to a German Sprachschule for French the they can help you to

Thanks a3-Steve, I could also translate it myself but they won't have that, it needs to be OFFICIAL with a big stamp on it and somehow I don't think the Winnie the Pooh stamps I have upstairs will be good enough.

I had the same problem when I got married 14 years ago. The Standesamt said it was not allowed for me to have a double barelled surname and would cause prolems when I had to register children in the future. Funny thing was I hadn't even asked to keep my old surname. I had to sign some kind of form saying I was only taking my new Husbands last name!! To save trouble, when you eventually get all of your paperwork sorted out ask for an International birth certificate when you register your son. it is written in about 12 different languages, it doesn't cost a lot more than the normal one. It is good then for any EC country which if you move around a lot saves a lot of hassle

Hi Mireille,

I got our marriage certificate officially translated & stamped by a company called Kern. They charge per word & I think it cost us about 40 EUR. They have offices all over Germany and you can find the nearest one on this website: www.e-kern.com

All this admin stuff can really drive you up the wall, but we found it much easier to apply for bank services etc when we had the translated marriage cert. Good luck with it all!

Cheers Pumkin!

Cant help with your problem I'm afraid but there are a lot of problems about

Mine was when I got married. My husbands surname is his exwife's from his previous marriage. There is a good reason why he has taken it and since kept it which I will explain at the end. Anyway, I wanted to take this surname when I got married but the registry office said no as it is against the law in Germany. Seems they believe that a surname belongs to the family (in this case his ex-wifes family). In England it is the opposite, no one owns a name and anyone can choose what they want to be called (I quite fancy `Marilyn Monroe` next time).

I opted out of abiding by the German system which is my right but the problem then was that they would only allow me to take the husbands name on the certificate IF I could provide them with stamped (Ahhh don't you just love it when they ask for the 'STAMP') official proof of an English law that states that it is OK for me to take my husbands married name (wherever he got it from) in England. Well as you would expect there is not one, only centuries of tradition which means diddle squat to the Germans. So after loads of phone calls and nobody having come across this problem before my wedding certificate states that my name after marriage is the same as it was before.

Luckily the British passport system is a little more open minded and gave me my new passport in my married name. This was then good enough for me to change one UK bank account but not another (there loss, as I closed that account). Cant wait until I move back to Germany and register and see what they then do with a wedding certificate and passport in different names.

Oh yes, the reason the husvband wanted to keep his surname. He is in the army and quite proud that he can go around with "Frieden" written on his chest.

Maybe you should have gone to Gretna Green to get married.

My German cousin who married in Germany, and is still living and working in Germany kept her maiden name and also took her husbands' surname to make a double-barrelled name (his name being 1st part of name). So it is possible

Any children that they may have will take his name, but she will keep her maiden name in the double barral format.

How unlucky (in getting 'served' at the Amt) can you get?

What total twats they were/are. There are boat-loads of Germans who get married every year and keep their own surnames because it's such a bastard even for them to get it changed in their bank, credit cards, passport, etc.. How the hell do they fix it so that there isn't a problem when they register their children???