[Debs]

Hi there
Can anyone help - We are gathering our information for our ITA.
I rung a solicitor for costs on having our birth certificates,passports etc certified so that we can keep hold of the originals....the solictor said do we want the documents certified or noterised
I have no idea !!

The ITA guide says Certified copies so I assume thats what we need, there is no mention of noterised copies.

Anyone know ????
Cheer

[wiki]

Just certified that they are a true copy.

If you get a notorised copy you have to swear an oath that it's true, whereas a certified copy is just them looking at both copies and saying they are exact. If you get a notorised copy and it turns out you swore an oath and it wasn't a true copy then you can be taken to court.

I had to get a notory signature on my partnership declaration but not on the individual copies of documents.

[speckythecky]

It also does not have to be a solicitor that certifies to copy, I have a friendly JP that I worked with for years and he will sign anything

[masajebe]

Hi! We're just about at that stage too but the ITA also says you can send ordinary photocopies as long as you send the original documents such as passports too. They will send the originals back to you. It costs masses to get certified copies of things - cost us £5 just for a passport! Guess its not so good if you need all the originals back in a hurry though.

We wondered about taking them all in to London ourselves as other people on the forum said they had there forms all checked and got their originals back the same day.

[wiki]

We took our stuff in and got it checked and the only thing I left was my partner's passport to save sending it down later. I needed my passport back for work and I don't trust Royal Mail!

It's very easy to do at NZ House, so if you have the time to go down I'd recommend it.



Hi! We're just about at that stage too but the ITA also says you can send ordinary photocopies as long as you send the original documents such as passports too. They will send the originals back to you. It costs masses to get certified copies of things - cost us £5 just for a passport! Guess its not so good if you need all the originals back in a hurry though.

We wondered about taking them all in to London ourselves as other people on the forum said they had there forms all checked and got their originals back the same day.

[masajebe]

That sounds good. Thinking we might be able to have a bit of a trip out to London for the day. Not been down for ages.

How long did it take to get stuff checked while you were there? Did you get your partner's passport back ok?

Wondered if we'd leave our passports there too and pay the migrant levy up front so didn't have to send them back later.

[wiki]

Not got the passport yet as it's only been seven weeks since we dropped it in and we're applying under the partnership stream so the process is a little different for us.

The place opens at 10 and I was there about five minutes before and there were two people in the queue in front of me. At 10 they let us up stairs (NZIS office is on the first floor of the embassy and you can't miss it) and the girl in front decided not to go in (for some unfathomable reason) and the guy in front of me stopped to look at brochures so I took the first ticket, was seen in two minutes and it took about 15 minutes for the girl to check the application.

I know she was an actual case officer and not just admin staff so I'd guess that all the "checkers" are also case officers and know what to look for. (I asked her name while we were chatting and her last name is on the receipt and it's the same person who is pinkpiggy's case officer)

I was out of there before 10.30am

[masajebe]

That sounds really good! Will definitely have to do that. Just waiting for one last letter to comlete our application then we'll be able to take it down.

Thanks for that!

[aberdian]

If you have a friendly neighbourhood solicitor, they'll maybe do it for free - ours just asked us to drop them off and his secretary gave us a buzz once they were done a few days later. Maybe he's just friendlier than normal but it's worth a try......

Cheers

Ian

[Debs]

thanks for all the replies
Can i check - is it definitley ok to send certified copies of passports ?
(we need the originals to travel to NZ)

[Riddley]

Yes it's OK to send a certified copy: I've just done it with my husband's as he needs it for work. I ended up copying midwifery cert.s etc too because at £3 a pop it seemed rude not to! I was originally quoted £60 from a notary which made me swallow hard....
Good luck with the ITA: I'm so glad ours has gone (as of last week).