A Statement-in- Lieu of Certificate of Non-Impediment to Marriage Abroad is a document issued by Global Affairs Canada. It is a document that confirms that there is no objection to a proposed marriage or civil partnership.

The requirements are precise and are as follows:

– A notarized declaration that contains your full name, current marital status and permanent address in Canada. Please note that Global Affairs does not accept a residential address that uses a postal box number.
– Submit additional documents, depending upon your situation:
– If born in Canada, you must provide a copy of your birth certificate or passport
– Widowed: you must submit a certified copy of the death certificate of your spouse
– Divorced: you must submit a certified copy of the divorce certificate
– Born Abroad: you must submit a certified copy of your Canadian Citizenship Certificate, Permanent Resident Card, or Passport.

Our office can definitely speed up the process of having the Statement in Lieu issued. By having our office present the documentation in person, the authentication office of Global Affairs will issue the Statement in Lieu while we wait.

The length of time required to authenticate and legalize the Statement-in-Lieu of Certificate of Non-Impediment to Marriage Abroad varies depending upon the diplomatic mission. Reach out to our office and we can provide detailed information based upon your unique situation.

There are a number of factors that need to be taken into consideration when determining the overall fees. For example, what is the cost charged by the particular countries Embassy or Consular Office, the number of documents that must be legalized, is translation and notarization required, the associated courier costs, if any, and our fees.

When suggesting fees, our office balances the anticipated total time required to have your document issued by Global Affairs coupled with the length of time that an Embassy or Consulate will take to complete the legalization process. We will provide a fully itemized quote.

To make it easier to understand, we have grouped the authentication and legalization fees together. Our office offers four different processing options depending upon urgency. More importantly, we employ a system that we refer to as “The Completion Time Method”. When suggesting prices, we balance the total time expected to take to have the document(s) authenticated by Global Affairs and then legalized by a particular Embassy or Consular Office. Employing our method translates into lower fees for our customers.

Our office offers a number of different payment options such as money order, e-transfer, direct payment into our account, credit card (visa or mastercard).  If you have any questions about payment methods, please feel free to reach out to our office either by e-mail or telephone as we will happily discuss payment options.

We suggest using a national courier such as FedEx, Purolator, DHL or Canada Post “Xpresspost”.  Each of these courier options offers a form of tracking and considering that the documents are sensitive in nature the ability to track your item is strongly recommended.

Once the authentication and legalization services have been completed, our clients can provide a prepaid return courier to our office.  If however it is more convenient, our office will happily arrange for the return courier either to our client directly or to an authorized third party of their choosing.

At Capital Authentication we do not like to return documents to a client using regular lettermail.  Regular lettermail is not encouraged given the sensitive nature of the documents.  However, where a client has specifically requests this method of return, we will comply.

This is a very good question and it really depends upon where one intends to use the document.  As long as the document is a Canadian document, Global Affairs Canada will authenticate either an original document or a notarized copy of the document.  If using a notarized document, the notary must be a Canadian notary.   The more important question to ask is whether the diplomatic mission in question will accept notarized documents instead of original documents.  It is always best to consult the diplomatic mission to determine if original documents and/or notarized documents can be used.  There are some diplomatic missions that will only accept original documents.

Should a problem arise with the processing of your documents due to a change in policy or requirements by Global Affairs Canada or at a particular diplomatic mission our office will be in contact with our clients immediately, by e-mail and/or telephone, so as to identify the problem and determine the best possible solution.

There are many instances when it is more convenient for a client to have documents sent directly to our office as opposed to their receiving them first.  For example, government issued documents such as birth certificates can be sent directly to us.  We can receive them and start compiling a client dossier with the authentication and legalization component to commence once we have all of the documents.