Documents less than three months old???

[Amina_KSA 0]

Ok, so I was just browsing random posts on VJ and I saw that someone said in their packet 3 it said that documents like military service papers, police records, marriage certificates (that one really threw me for a loop) must be less than three months old. I am TOTALLY confused and HORRIFIED by this b/c we gathered all of our documents early this summer during our vacation to Egypt. I have done massive amounts of research on this whole process and I have never, ever seen anything about all documents needing to be less than three months old. I mean, for example, our wedding certificate is from the day we got married...which is obviously longer than three months ago...and DH's military certificate is something you get like once in a lifetime when you complete your military service from the Egyptian government, it's not something you can just send away for. Also, it took us like 4 months to get his police records from when he lived in Europe, so again..that's not just something we can send away for and get the next day or week. I was under the impression that as long as you have not re-entered said country, the police certificate was still good. So for example, if we have a police cert. from Holland dated in May and DH has not been to Holland following the date of the police certificate then it is still valid. Also, for our I-864 my grandmom is going to be a joint sponsor so we filled out all those papers and had everything notarized with her during our vacation to America this summer also...so, by the time we go to hand them in to the embassy (GOD WILLING) they will be older than three months old.

Please tell me it's going to be ok because there is no way we can just up and fly to Egypt for another two or three weeks just to get these papers again....

Seriously, I read everything inside and out and I never saw anything about the three months thing until I read that post here on VJ.

Thanks guys!

Edited August 16, 2008 by Amina_KSA

[trailmix 77]

No, there is no 3 month rule that I have ever heard of. Plus you need to look at the civil documents separately.

Birth certificates, marriage certificates, they don't have to have been issued recently, they do not change. The time sensitive documents are the Police Certificate and medical.

Generally these are good for 1 year from date of issue, however if you have any doubts about it you should contact your embassy directly.

As for the I-864 - you would only need to update this if the financial information changed when you get to interview time. Same with the DS-230, you might want to submit a new one at the interview if any of the information has changed. I would not volunteer either of these unless you are specifically asked about it, but I would have the updated forms on hand.

Edited August 16, 2008 by trailmix

[LA80 3]

Hello Amina,

In my country, they require marriage certificate to be not more than 6 months old and birth certificate not more than 1 year old. For other papers, they did not set any limits. Medical exam has to be taken at least 7 days before the interview. I just checked (again) the list of stuff they gave me.

It is not impossible that some consulates did set 3 months as a limit, but before you start panicking (like I do often these days), maybe it would be the best to call and ask them.

Good luck!

[Amina_KSA 0]

Hello Amina,

In my country, they require marriage certificate to be not more than 6 months old and birth certificate not more than 1 year old. For other papers, they did not set any limits. Medical exam has to be taken at least 7 days before the interview. I just checked (again) the list of stuff they gave me.

It is not impossible that some consulates did set 3 months as a limit, but before you start panicking (like I do often these days), maybe it would be the best to call and ask them.

Good luck!

Hello LA80,

What I find strange about those rules is that if your marriage certificate can't be less than 6 months old this would mean you have to go and get an official copy of your marriage certificate rather than the original...because the original is given at the actual time of marriage. Also, how could people who were married in distant countries (IE not the countries they are currently living, which is very possible with DCF filers) obtain new marriage certificates every six months? The same goes for birth certificates...you'd have to go to the actual country you were born in just to get a new copy of your birth certificate? I just doesn't make any logic sense to me.

From what I have studied about DCF in this part of the world (although not Riyadh embassy specifically because there is virtually no information available about DCF at Riyadh embassy either from other people who have filed or from the embassy itself) is that there are no time restrictions on papers like marriage/birth certificates and things like police records have to be less than one year old or must be dated after the last time the person was in that country...this all makes sense to me.

As for asking the embassy...that's the problem. They don't answer the phone, don't return calls, and rarely answer emails...and if they do answer an email it is to say "please check the website" and the website gives ZERO information.

*sigh*

Anyway, thanks again for your response!

[Penguin_ie 5,996]

The rule in Ireland is that the police cert cannot be older than 6 months unless the place you get it from (if you need to get ones for other countries) is extremely difficult to get/ there are special circumstances. The medical needs to be done within one month of the interview, anything else can be as old as you want

[LA80 3]

See, and now I should go crazy again because my medical was completed one month and eleven days before the interview, but I am not in Ireland, so I will try not to.

[Amina_KSA 0]

See, and now I should go crazy again because my medical was completed one month and eleven days before the interview, but I am not in Ireland, so I will try not to.

Awwwwwww!!! I know, doesn't it all make you crazy? I couldn't sleep last night b/c I got myself so nervous about all the paper work and dates (that I don't remember) and DH was like "I think reading about other people's experiences only stresses people out more...and each person is in a different country and has their own set of circumstances so please try not to pay too much attention to it all"...and he's right, but I still can't help coming to VJ and stressing myself out, lol.

Hang in there, I'm sure everything is fine!