Translating Doc to Spanish and apostille

travel_freak

Hi there,

Can anyone help with this little query?!?

I need to get an English marriage certificate translated into Spanish. I then have to get this and a copy of the marriage certificate signed by a notary and then apostilled by the Foreign Office.

I think to save money I can do step 3 - i.e. getting the apostille - myself by personally attending the FO and this would save time too as I need to send the papers over to Spain very quickly.

However, I'm not clear at all on steps 1 and 2. Does anyone know whether you have to get an "official" translation by some recognised person/body in order that a notary will agree to sign it? Can anyone recommend a translator that would be OK for this job and that doesn't cost the earth?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Regards

grumbler

I don't know about 1 and 2, but I think you can hardly save time and money by DIY with 3. The notary I delt with didn't charge extra for this - just oficial FO fee (not very high - if compared with the notary fee) and this was very fast. I also remember that not all EU countries require apostille - it is worth checking regarding Spain, althoug most likesy it is needed there.

travel_freak

Thanks, Grumbler. I've had a few quotes from notaries and so far they want to charge £50 just for obtaining the apostille from the FCO - plus the actual cost of this which is £19. If I do this myself it'll only cost me my tube fare and I have the time. I'm still looking around for a better quote on the translations. Unfortunately Spain does require both a notary public and the apostille. Thanks anyway.

wolfehouse

When I had mine translated they recommended using a university teacher. don't know if they'd do it without charging though.

ioscorpio

http://babelfish.altavista.com/

Can you not translate it yourself

BargainHunterCat

iomexico wrote:

http://babelfish.altavista.com/

Can you not translate it yourself

Hmm unfortunately I cannot recommend babel fish or any other translation program. They are not reliable enough to get everything right and you may end up saying somehting silly!
Also I'm guessing your notary will require a translation done by an approved translator? They may have a list available for you to ring around. This is what I did when I got married in France.

gatita

Definately DON'T use one of those automatic translators on the web.they are ludicrous! I posted on one of the forums on this site an example. You will find it has to be an official body that translates your documents (otherwise I could do it for you) as someone else suggested, a university teacher would probably be the best option. Good luck;)