Legalities regards international marriages

Surprising that there's not a thread about this already on TT, especially as weddings are covered from every other aspect, but I may have missed it - Miss Angel and I plan to marry next year in France as she's French. For information I'm English and we both live in Munich.

The list of questions is this:

1) For a wedding in France do we have to visit a notar and have a contract drawn up? If this isn't essential is it advisable for international weddings? Should we get this done in Germany or will a contract signed in France be valid here? Where could we go for advice, anyone know a good notar?
2) Does anyone know what forms are essential to fill in to get married in France and have the wedding recognised in Germany? It seems EU harmonisation has gone some way to sorting this one out for us, but not the whole way.
3) Do weddings trump existing wills or is it then essential to get wills remade to cover the death of the partner?
4) Has anyone done something similar and can provide useful information? I imagine that all EU countries' weddings are recognised so once married somewhere in the EU the registration here should be easy and much advice applicable Europe wide.

For information the British Consulate have been mildly helpful, but we've been given some contradictory advice and any clarification would be gratefully received. We're also looking for other information on the 'net but it's not all that easy...

Thanks in advance.

Vegas Baby!

I don't know any answers to your questions but just wanted to wish you and Miss Angel all the best.

Thanks Dan, that's a class first answer... We've already heard of one couple in a similar situation who gave up marrying in France having been driven to despair by the bureacracy...

Tell you r girlfriend to contact the French consulate in Munich and ask them what she needs to marry in France to a foreign person and that you both live in Munich. I am sure they have the information available.
Congratulations!

Congrats Hellesangel!

I think you'll have to ask the French authorities where you want to marry what they need. Even in Germany, it can differ depending on where you are. The only other thing I can help you with is that, if you can, get an international copy of your wedding certificate. The one from Germany is written in German, French and English if I remember correctly. With it being in English, we haven't had any problems using it anywhere, it's been accepted without problem.

I believe you do require a contract as you'll need something to stipulate which regime you're marrying under. A contract in France, I believe, will be valid in Germany (get it apostilled is my advice as they'll likely want that). And yes, I know two good Notars. I'm one of them, but in London and this isn't my field anyway, but I'd suggest Dr. Kopp whose details are at www.notare-kopp-benesch.de. Not sure how much help she can be, but she does speak good French IIRC and so could perhaps at least steer you in the right direction.

Congratulations and good luck!

Congrats again! I can't fullyanswer your questions, but wanted to post since I'm in a similar situation (Belgian/Irish in Germany).

We'll be drawing up our wills again (probably in Germany) after getting married in Belgium, then somehow making the originals official in all 3 countries (legal translation + reference to the original one in Germany). We don't want to not do this and learn something the hard way. It would be enough to have to deal with a bereavement, if we were contesting wills in the different countries it would be a nightmare. But this is important to us as we still have something of value in all 3 places.

If you are considering some kind of marriage contract, in some countries this needs to be registered in the same country before the wedding takes place. It may or may not be recognised in the other countries. So for us that means a trip to the Notary at some point before the civil part. I suppose we'd then have to have any marriage contract and the marriage registered in Germany once everything is completed.

I presume all EU countries recognise marriage in other countries, but that doesn't mean they respect the rules of marriage of the other country. For example, marriage contracts (to the best of my knowledge) do not exist and are not valid when getting married in Ireland under Irish law. So although Ireland would recognise a marraige in another country, it doesn't mean it would recognise any marriage contract. I could imagine its similar with divorce etc, but we're not planning that just yet!

We started by going and talk to the local town hall where we're getting married in Belgium. After describing our particular situation she gave us a list of documents we'd need to provide etc. Then we approached the Irish consulate since I'm a foreigner marrying abroad. We haven't gone near any German official yet, and probably won't do so until after the wedding. Now its a matter of waiting to apply until the last 4-6 months, as the documents are only valid for a limited time. Then there will be a flurry of going from one office to the next, getting official legal translations etc. I'm sure there will be something they forgot, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. After the wedding we'll have the same dance around Europe to have the marriage registered. What fun.

Hope this helps!

We had a three-nation wedding, too, but my husband is German. If I were you, I'd visit the Standesamt in your town in Germany and ask them what they require, exactly, to recognize the marriage, because it might save you lots of stress once you're married with re-registering everything. They will be totally rude and ridiculous, but if you just keep at them, you'll avoid having to fill in additional paperwork later on. Also obviously call both the French and British Embassies and then visit them to make sure you've got everything taken care of. All the countries have strange agreements with one another as far as marriages are concerned (including name change-- ask about that at all three authorities if either of you are changing yours) that you just have to keep asking about till someone explains it to you properly.

By the way, if you're changing your names, plan in advance what accounts held in Germany you'll be changing or not. If you decide to keep one in your old name but they find out you have a new name, it's just a huge hassle to convince them you need it for a D/B/A or whatever (been there).

The easiest would be to do the standard amt thing here and do a church wedding in France
Congrats

Can't answer any of your questions, I'm afraid, just wanted to say Félicitations!

Vegas is a bad idea. German friends of ours got married in Vegas and it took them 6 months and tons of red tape to have the marriage recognized in Germany

Hubby (German) and I (Canadian) got married in Switzerland where we were living back in 2001. We had wanted to get married in Germany but ran afoul of residency requirements since neither of us were a German resident at the time. France has similar residency requirements in that one or the other of you must have lived in the town for a while (more than a month I believe).

Because Canada gives no official id that states marital status, I had to go to the Canadian embassy and swear out a "Certificat de célibat". Gosh, we sure giggled over that one, but the French term actually just means single, not celibate I also had to get a new copy of my birth certificate because mine was issued more than 6 months back. Got all excited that something new might show up but it was the same old info. <g>

My advice would be to contact the city hall of the town in France where you want to get married. They'll tell you all about what you need.

We've had no trouble having the marriage recognized in Germany, but our official Swiss papers are all in French/German/Italian so no translation needed.

You might find the web site Getting Married in France helpful (French Gov't Tourist Office)
Also, see INFORMATION FOR BRITISH NATIONALS CONTEMPLATING MARRIAGE IN FRANCE UNDER FRENCH LAW (British Embassy, France)

Congrats and Good Luck!

Actually did just this in April. Fortunately one of you is French, which is half the battle won. We were two foreigners marrying in Paris (Austrian & Scot) making it even more challenging.

1) For a wedding in France do we have to visit a notar and have a contract drawn up?
- Technically no. But it is highly irregular not to and raises bureaucratic eyebrows. We went to the notaire, who was actually very helpful.

If this isn't essential is it advisable for international weddings?
- It is advisable for international weddings, as it provides some kind of coherent legal framework, which could then be transferred elsewhere... rather than being "stateless."

Should we get this done in Germany or will a contract signed in France be valid here?
- If you are getting married in France, then one of you (presumably the French mlle) needs to be pretending to be a resident in that neighbourhood — it's one of the preconditions. In which case you need to maintain the illusion that France is the centre of the world, so doing the marriage contract there is also a good thing.
- Under some kind of Hague Convention (really) your French marriage contract is DEFINITELY valid (and transferable if you wish) in Germany and in most major countries. The French has 3 standard templates for "regimes." One of them (the one we picked) is actually known by French legal folks as "the German option" because it is modelled on the standard German contract (which basically says what yours is yours and what's hers is hers).

Where could we go for advice, anyone know a good notar?
If in Paris:
Alexandra Etasse (enjoys speaking fluent English)
Etasse Notaires
6 rue Biot
75017 Paris
metro Place de Clichy.
alexandre.etasse.75073@paris.notaires.fr

2) Does anyone know what forms are essential to fill in to get married in France and have the wedding recognised in Germany?
- You have to go in person to the mairie in France where you reside/are getting married (same thing) and get the application forms in person.
- You need a FRESH official copy of your birth certificate that has been issued within 3 months (for the French person) and 6 months for the foreigner. The documents not in French MUST be translated by an official translator approved by the mairie (they will give you a list). (It's a real racket for these 19 approved translators in Paris!)
- Best of all you need a document that doesn't exist in UK admin: A document that says you are single! So you have to go to the British embassy and pay them approx 50 euros and they give you a stamped photocopy with a coat of arms that says "Nous ne faisons pas cela."
- You also need a medical examination by French doctor.
- Only once you have completed the full application dossier will they talk to you about wedding dates (at least that's how it was for us). And you have to get married before the expiry of you 3-6 birth certificates.
- Frankly it's all a bit crazy, but it was worth it for us to be married in Montmartre (then abscond back to Berlin!).

It seems EU harmonisation has gone some way to sorting this one out for us, but not the whole way.
- No, it is sufficiently sorted out.

3) Do weddings trump existing wills or is it then essential to get wills remade to cover the death of the partner?
- Talk to the notaire. I believe wedding contract trumps existing wills, as it deals with all post-death structures. But maybe it can be customized. Dunno.

4) Has anyone done something similar and can provide useful information? I imagine that all EU countries' weddings are recognised so once married somewhere in the EU the registration here should be easy and much advice applicable Europe wide.
- Wedding structures and requirements are unique to each country - not harmonized - but they are definitely recognized between members states.

Good luck, and have fun!

As far as I know a UK will is invalidated by marriage. Check with whoever drew up the will for you.

Wow, thanks everyone and especially Sabatini for your information, and dreamer congratulations again too, I guess you're going through similar pain to us... It's reassuring to see that someone has succeeded wading through the bureaucratic nightmare.

Slowly it's beginning to make sense, especially the birth certificate requirements which seemed bizarre at first, because they are bizarre. Rather than trusting the certificate my parents got when I was born I require one, if not two, new certificates to be issued, one for the fun pack for the mairie and the other for something else, each needing to not be older than 3 or 6 months. It seems wise not to try to understand the requirements just do what's listed, blindly, calmly, patiently...

Sounds just like marriage, doesn't it?

Very good Kay, very good... I'm getting quite good at detecting those signals, those slight ground tremors, the change in atmospheric pressure, the sudden evacuation of other animals from the area that indicate I've got a problem, although I still need a little practice at defusing the situation...

You forgot about the pre-nup.

Have a pre-marriage party here or in France (dress, tux and the whole shebang if you want) and fly off to Florida for the Honeymoon and get married there. While at the license office, have them already start on sending you the Apostille to your German address and get a few certified copies. Florida has lots of experience with this. When you get back, have the documents translated and just submit along with the German forms.

In Florida, you can then get married anywhere you want. Hell, you could get married in bed, at Disneyland by Mr. Mouse, on a Casino Cruise by the Captain, at the beach, anywhere as long as you have the right person there to stamp it official. Oh, and you don't have to be a resident.

Defusing is easy... just say you're sorry and keep apologising. Doesn't matter what happened or who is to blame, just keep repeating that you're sorry and you'll do better/know better next time. Perhaps some nice flowers or some other thoughtful gift might also be helpful, but nothing too expensive or you'll be in trouble again for wasting money.

Vegas is too far, try Denmark.

Try this site::

http://www.heiraten-leicht-gemacht.de/english/ueberuns.html

So, we're now two months further down the line and it's time for a rant about raving fucking bureaucrats and their self serving, pointless, paper chasing. I love the French people but les fonctionnaires are the most useless bunch of wankers I've ever come across - we're hatching a plot to GET MARRIED you stupid bastards, not burn cars or perform a terrorist atrocity, why won't you just try to help us instead of throwing obstacles in our way?? No wonder they have armed police on the doors of these places.

So, what happened? With the help of TT and many others we found the list of very important documents we must have to get married in France which include:
A copy of my birth certificate, reproduced from the original records in the UK, printed by a scribe using a feather quill pen in ink from squid, and signed by a direct descendant of a round table knight.
Locks of hair from all grandparents.
A copy of the Magna Carta... Sorry, ranting again.

Seriously, the real thing is hardly less absurd:
1) Visit the General Records Office and order a birth certificate. (Cost 26 GBP). The French dish these out for free. Good thing too, as you need two copies with different dates!
2) Obtain a CERTIFICATE OF LAW (Coutume) by sending this, and the other forms necessary as described here, along with a cheque for 87 euro to the British Consulate in Paris. They require the original passport, and wont accept personal cheques. For all this the 'certificate' is a piece of A4, photocopied, with a couple of stamps on it.
3) When it returns from the embassy get the birth certificate translated into French, by a translator officially sanctioned by the Mairie. Even though the ingredients for making a child are pretty similar in France, England, and throughout the EU, the bastards must have this in French as they don't seem to understand where foreign babies come from. The translation will take one of these poor, overworked and underpaid, translators TWO FUCKING HOURS of paid for hard work! Note that of course the certificate must not be older than six months at the date of the wedding.
4) Visit a French (of course!) doctor and get a medical, and get him to sign a certificate, obtained from the town hall, that you really are two people who are alive.
5) Print this wonderful form which says the UK doesn't have a certificate to say I'm single.
6) Get photocopies of your passports, and those of all the witnesses.
7) A utility bill proving you live in the area.
8) Submit this collection of paper to the town hall six months before the date of your wedding and they will, after an appropriate delay, inform you of your wedding time at the town hall.
9) Order another copy of your birth certificate as above. This must be less than three months old at the date of your wedding.
10) Get it translated AGAIN, yes really. No, you couldn't make it up. We'll be sure to use the same translator and see if it takes two hours the second time round, thus proving a suspicion I have about these grasping tossers.

On Saturday we went to the town hall, with all the paper we had and of course we'd forgotten the translation of the birth certificate and the useless bitch hadn't seen an Englishman before and didn't know how the process worked. Of course she didn't want to make a mistake and asked us to come back on Monday when someone with a functioning brain would be there. When we pointed out that Mrs. Angel had an operation last week and isn't supposed to move, and I have a job I must attend, the pointless dolly didn't seem to comprehend that life outside the Mairie actually existed. There were, she said, no exceptions, our file must be complete and all this paper was important. Exactly what the problem would be if two people got married without all this paper didn't seem to be an issue, and my French isn't good enough to probe her about it, though I did feel like stamping her with the date and ramming her head in the filing cabinet.

Honestly I can see why people go to Denmark, the US, wherever. It's such a trial to do it in Europe.

Oh, and another useful tip to save effort and money: If you want a contract with your wedding, which is optional but strongly advised by notars who will make money creating one for you, then don't submit it with your wedding file to the Mairie because then it has to be translated into French (of course!). As long as it's signed before the wedding it's valid and you can create and sign it in any language you like.

Wow sounds awful...why don't you go to the UK, you could elope to Gretna Green weddings . Anyway I got married in England, husband is American, we paid for a quickie license which basically means you only have to post the bans for 24hrs, we only needed a UK address & passports, we had to sign a form to say neither of us had been married before and I also had to sign a form to say that I understood that marrying an American didn't entitle me to live in the US . All in all it was very easy and painless, when we got back here I took my marriage cert to the rathaus to change my name, but they refused to change it until I changed my passport, but once I got my new passport it was no prob.

Anyway congrats & best of luck with your wedding.

Watch out for estate tax law.

German wife and I have been married for 11 years (U.S. civil ceremony), but under the byzantine German tax code, were i to croak, half of her pile would have not passed tax-free as if married in Germany (they treat is as a gift and tax it at 50%).

Get married wherever you like, but set up a (retroactive) Ehevertrag or face a nasty surprise. And don't think you're not rich enough ... this is a poor country and their definition of "rich" is a joke.

http://www.heiraten-leicht-gemacht.de/english/ueberuns.html

maze176, that's interesting... do you have personal experience of their service?

cruiser

I agree with eurovol here. Beyond me why anyone gets married in this country if they don't have desperate family politics to contend with -- do the legal stuff in some easy country where you just show up with passports (like the US) and then have the parties wherever you want. I've posted this so many times before I didn't bother to already post it here, but oh well.

Well said!

I got married in France (though not Paris) and I remember the amount of paperwork to sort out is exhausting.
Though we may have had it a little easier because we were resident then, but it felt every time we went to the mairie with some paperwork, they'd invent some other reason that required another small rainforest of paper!

I remember the consulate were very helpful in providing official photocopies of things.

And of course, when you've successfully got married and move onto another country, that country requires a certified translation of said marriage certificate.
They provide international birth certificates in France, you'd think they'd consider doing the same for marriage.

Anyway, good luck, with it all!

This was about the nearest topic I could find...

I just heard of a case at the weekend. Couple married under German law (he was German she EU and they have kids). Father died recently without a will which apparently automatically means all assets get divided amongst the wife/children (the children are young). Here's the problem. The mother is not allowed to sell the family home as it also belongs to the children and the children have to be 18 before they can permit the sale despite the whole family now wishing to leave Germany.
That got me thinking as I suspect if I died tommorrow my wife may want to sell up and return to the UK. Currently that wouldn't be possible as we only have wills in Ireland and the UK we'd be forced to hang on to the house here for another 10 years as our youngest is 8...
Can anyone confirm that this is this is the case? Anyone know how easy it is to make a will here??

You go to a Notar: you will find that your hands are tied (you cannot leave all to the dog's home) & it costs MONEY based on your apparent wealth...

Regarding that case, bit difficult. And an extremely messy field, anyway

I'd say that likely an Erbengemeinschaft exists which jointly owns the house, and which includes the mother and the children. In order to sell the house, the Erbengemeinschaft would have to be dissolved.

The mother likely does have custody of the children, however in case of a dissolvement of the Erbengemeinschaft (meaning selling the house and splitting the value among the inheritants), she does not have judicial guardianship over them.
It's possible to still do this by introducing the guardianship court, and having separate public appointed guardians for each child in the dissolution process. Hoewever, this can still be rather complicated and next to unsolvable, in particular if there are also business assets as part of the heritage, if the house has mortgages running with it, or if any loans were part of the heritage (since those could likely only rightfully be dissolved when the children turn adult).

As for wills: Making a will or testament and references from there.

I got married recently in Berlin (Standesamt Mitte) and it turned out not to be that awful in the end, although a bit frustrating at times.

I'm a German citizen, but born in the United States, so therefore my family's birth information is stored in Standesamt I in Berlin.
My husband is an American citizen born in the United States.
We were both not previously married and had no children.

We needed:

For me (the German citizen):
1) Meldebescheinigung, also known as a Bescheinigung aus dem Melderegister - This is NOT the same as the Anmeldebstaetigung, which is the receipt you get when you get angemeldet. However, you can get it at the same location. It costs under 10 EUR. The significant difference between this and the Anmeldebestaetigung is that this one has a line saying that you're single. This needed to be less than 14 days old. It's quick to get, though.

2) Abstammungsurkunde - I had to get this from Standesamt I in Berlin, and it had to be less than 6 months old. If my parents had had a Familienbuch (they didn't, because they married in the United States) I would have needed a "beglaubigte Abschrift" of this, from the Standesamt where they got married. To get these, you just have to look up the Standesamt online and fax/send/webform in a request for it. Each costs under 10 EUR. Getting mine was a bit annoying because Standesamt I receives about a metric ton of paper every day and they never get back to people. If I had been in Berlin at the time, I could have gotten it right away in person, but as I was in Munich, it ended up taking 8 weeks and a phone call to the Standesamt manager.

3) Personalausweis.

For him (the American citizen):
1) Meldebescheinigung, see above.

2) A new (less than 6 months old) copy of his birth certificate, apostilled, and translated. He called the state where he was born, got the copy, sent it to the Apostille office in the same state (he had the help of his father in the US for this, so it was a bit faster), and then took it to a translator in Berlin. It cost about $30 for the cerficate and maybe $15 to get it apostilled. The notarized translation was not more than 50 EUR for same-day service.

3) US Passport.

4) A document from the US Embassy Citizen Services (the one in Dahlem, not downtown) saying that as far as the consul knew, my fiance was single. I can't remember how much this cost. I think something like $25. In Munich you can apparently do without this.

Now, here's the complicated bit: When we did the "Beantragung zur Eheschliessung" (went to the Standesamt to get a wedding date), my fiance needed to jump through some extra hoops. First, he had to swear (again, like he did in front of the consul) that he wasn't already married. Then, the Standesamt people needed to send his documentation to the Kammergericht (Court of Justice) who had to do some kind of good-faith investigation to make sure he wasn't a known bigamist in the United States. They threatened that this would take 3 to 6 weeks. However, my fiance demanded to know what he could do to expedite this, and they told him he could take his paperwork down to the Kammergericht himself. In the end, this took one week, and cost 155 EUR. If you don't take the paperwork down in person, and pay in person, this can take significantly more time - the papers have to go in the internal post, they have to send you a bill, etc.

Once this was done, they gave us a date to be married. This cost under 100 EUR (including the variety of documentation we chose to get) and they gave us a date that was about two weeks away (exactly the date we wanted actually).

The actual "ceremony" was about 15 minutes. The official (female) actually gave a nice little, non-offensive speech and we just had to say "Ja". They didn't require a witness, but we brought one, and they weren't picky about the fact that she was just here on a tourist visa and her German wasn't perfect.

The most irritating thing for me (other than the incompetence of Standesamt I) was that although we were both born in the US and had only been in the country for about 5 years, for some reason since I was a German citizen and my mother had bothered to register me at the Standesamt, they weren't worried that I had somehow gotten married in the US and hadn't told them, but they were worried about my fiance. It's a really stupid legal law (anyone who's ever been out of the country could be secretly married somewhere, and they'll never be able to know for sure) but I'm sure it sounded like a good idea when it was passed.

The whole thing cost maybe 300 EUR and less than $100, and took a couple of weeks. We made it a bit more complicated because I was still angemeldet in Munich (we were in the process of moving), but that turned out to have been wholly unnecessary.

We could have flown to the US and gotten married, but then we would have paid for plane flights and we would have had to get the wedding certificate apostilled and translated for the immigration authorities, not to mention that some parts of the United States require things like blood tests and waiting periods and such. All in all it was less bad than we feared. They did appreciate that I speak fluent German and that my fiance spoke, well, tolerable German. Everybody was very friendly.

I would recommend, if you are planning to do this, to collect as many documents as possible from the list above before going in. Particularly the foreign birth certificate/apostille/translation can take unknown amounts of time (dependent on your home country) so if you already have them you are more than halfway there.

If anyone is thinking of getting married and has any questions feel free to PM me.

The getting mrried bit wasn't my problem but thanks for your long reply anyway. My problem is being married under German law and having property in Germany. If there are kids involved then things are not so easy to dispose of as in other EU countries...

Thanks for the information Hepat. I just want to state that the 'hoops' that you two had to jump through are not the same hoops for all German/American couples. I got married in December (I'm American, he's German) in Germany. My birth certificate was the same one I used when I got my passport 9 years earlier. It did not need to be less than 6 months old and did not need to be apostilled. It did, however, need to be translated by a certified translator.

The information about me being previously married was obtained by the Standesamt directly from the U.S. Embassy. I did not have to do anything extra.

I guess, in these situations, it is best to contact your own Standesamt and see what their specific requirements are.

Hi,

I'm currently looking into the possibility of getting married in the UK later this year. And have just been reading up a bit on what is required and what is needed for a registry office ceremony. I found on the North Yorkshire county council website something saying that I need to get a marriage liscence. As does my fiance. We have to be resident somewhere in the UK for seven days while this is proccessed. I can see this causing a few problems and was wondering if any TTers had any advice or experience.

Firstly actually getting time to go to the UK for seven days - we both have jobs, this could be tricky - is there any way they can check (ie with border control at airports etc).
Secondly the wording says you "must have lived in a registration district for seven days". My Fiance is Australian, so technically not allowed to "live" in the UK only visit, does anyone foresee this being a problem? And does living mean actually staying in one place? As if I were to go back to the UK for a week, I wouldn't particularly want to stay in one place for seven days - I'd like to visit friends and family who live all over the UK...

Many thanks in advance for any help you can offer.

Richard

Is Expaticus still around? Can anyone else vouch for this info? I married my German wife in Hong Kong. You mean to tell me that if I died, our assets would not pass to my wife but would be taxed as a gift to her from a third party?

Go to Scotland. No need for 7 days residence.

If we both have a Scottish marriage liscence, can we get married in England?Scottish law seems to bring up a whole bunch of exceptions - which I don't fully understand. Doing this would work extremely well though as we could just have a cheap and cheerful easyjet trip to Edinburgh to organise this.

Rich mole, I got married in the UK to an American and did it by Special license:

QUOTE

I can't remember how I handled the 15 day thing, but I certainly wasn't there for 15 days...maybe my mum did it for me? Actually maybe I just said I was there...they certainly didn't check anything, he had to show his passport & I think I had to show my Birth cert & we just signed a piece of paper to say we were both single, no other docs were needed.

Anyway maybe this website can help http://www.weddings.co.uk/info/legeng.htm</H4>

Edit: Seems that the rules may have changed since I got married...check here Home Office

Here is another site that may be helpful General Registry Office

Lurking, having been hounded off, but still feel a residual moral obligation to tie up any remaining loose ends.

Unfortunately, yes. Unbelievebly enough, we learned that whilst our U.S. marriage was recognized for civil purposes, it is not recognized for tax purposes. Hence having to set up a retroactive Ehevertrag to not get clobbered. Lawyer up ASAP ... this place is so desperately poor they'd tax their own grandmothers if the thought there was a Pfennig or two left to extract.

I'd get into the 10-year tax treaty double-taxation aspects of this depending on your domicile, but I think you're British, so EU should help there vs. Americans, Eritreans and/or North Koreans.

Back under the covers. I've been flamed by you before ... and seemingly everyone else here ex-Conquistador. Tschuss.

All of our paperwork is done (very easy, no reason to go to other countries...we had everything finished in under a month, even with birth cert from the states)...it has been turned in and approved, everything smooth.

Now, I'm just wondering...are there any advantages to look forward to being married to a German? From what I know...not much.

Anyone married to a German that could make a list of any advantages they're aware of?

If I told that your ears would burn

1. If you decide to stay and work here, you can obtain an unbefristet Aufenthaltstitel to live and work hassle free.

2. If you have kids, they'll automatically become German/EU + US dual citizens, which will offer immense flexibility when it comes to higher education. Just remember that unless they're born on US soil, they'll have issues in their early teens keeping the US passport unless you plan in advance.

3. If you buy property (and you execute a retroactive Ehevertrag), tax-advantaged property transfer is much better than in the US (where, if one's spouse is not a US citizen, the government takes half in estate taxes unless you execute a Qualified Domestic Trust (QDoT) and hopefully don't die in your first three years of marriage until it obtains force of law).

4. If you're new to the country, once locally registered your German spouse will likely be much better prepared to ease the process of buying cars, obtaining mobile phones, etc. which would otherwise be a real hassle for non-citizens.

5. You'll have a live-in native speaker who can translate parking and speeding tickets as well as German-language demands for you to pay even more taxes on your double-taxed income :-(

6. Spousal hygiene standards are generally world class ;-)

I doubt it as Scotland has a separate legal system, but I think a call to a Scottish registrar would help a lot with the detail of Scottish law. They are quite used to doing international marriages as there is no residence requirement and very little paperwork.

Flamed? I recall disagreeing with you on some point - perhaps it was your continual complaining about how awful life is for you in Germany?

This is the only place I have ever read anything on this rather bizarre tax matter. I guess I've burned my bridges with you, but does anyone else have any information whatsoever on this? (I realise I'm asking this for a second time, but thought I'd check again before embarking on a bureaucratic goose chase.)