Marriage in Brazil - Single Statement requirement inquiry

Apperently my Cortorio does not accept single statements declaration and Canada does not provide any official documents for single statements from any Canadian Vital Stats. I'm left in a complete  dead end.

Hi Sen5e,

What state and city are you planning on getting married in? Have you checked ANY other Cartório? They all seem to make up their own rules and there is absolutely no universality between them. You should check with a Cartório in another city or state, you'll probably find your Single Statement Declaration perfectly acceptable elsewhere. I was living in Bahia and ended up getting married in São Paulo because there was less red tape there than in Bahia or Minas Gerais for getting hitched.

Cheers,
William James Woodward, EB Experts Team

I was under the impression you can only get married where the spouse resides. They asked proof of residence from my spouse to make sure she's from same city of cartorio.

Funny story though. We ended up taking it upon ourselves to go to see the higher level lady (perhaps a lawyer?) that the cartorio contacted to notify her about problems with our documents to get a decision. Based on what they told her, she and the judge (highest level) refused the marriage to be approved for process. However, when we showed up with our documents, she said we CAN get married and my single statement is good!! There was also some other discrepencies with the lack of consistency of my full name spelling  throughout my documents that we clarified with her and she said its all good.

Moral of the story: If we listened to the cartorio and did nothing and accepted our defeat, there would be no marriage because they passed on the wrong info to the lawyer. She didn't even see the copies of our documents at first!!!! Her initial decision was solely based on the info the cartorio told her, which was incomplete. Its kind of crazy to think that we couldn't marry if it wasn't for the fact we took it upon ourselves to go see her and sort out the disorganized info they told her that she passed on to the judge.

Just like everything else in Brazil.... ask the same question of 10 different people and you get 10 different answers, all of them WRONG!!! That's why you should never ask for directions if you get lost here. 

You'll never find a nation where the people are so disconnected from the world around them. We foreigners know a whole lot more about the way things work in this country than the people who were born here and lived their entire lives in this country ever will. Strange, but true!!!

hey James just a question for you...

For foreigner, is it common for cartorios to require to get certain documents registered at a Cartorio de Registro de Titulos before the marriage can be processed and this is all done for a ridiculous fee? It's something $R105 per document. My cartorio said they require this before they can process the marriage... They need my passport, birth certificate and single statement registered. I'm looking at $R315 here!!
It's the first time I hear about this because I've never seen it being ever mentioned in forums and such by others.

It is certainly NOT required by any legislation that I'm aware of. I would really suggest that you drop this Cartório like a hot rock and arrange to get married in another on. I'm sure the judge who runs this Cartório saw you coming, figures that money grows on trees in Canada and is just taking advantage of you.

While proof of address IS required by Cartórios, that DOES NOT mean you cannot get married in a Cartório in any other jurisdiction than where you reside, because you certainly can. As I mentioned before, I got married in São Paulo (Jaraguá, São Paulo to be exact). While I had previously lived in São Paulo neither my spouse nor I lived there at the time the marriage was arranged. We actually applied from Belo Horizonte - MG, later moved to Porto Seguro - BA where we were living at the time the marriage took place.

One suggestion that I would highly recommend, retain a lawyer in some other jurisdiction to make the arrangements for you. It will cost a few bucks, but it is well worth the expense since all lawyers have friends in the Cartórios and this will go a long way towards cutting through all the red tape and the BS that many of the Cartório staff will try to tell the uninformed.

Cheers,
William James Woodward, EB Experts Team

Hello,
I am an indian, and in india we do not have such certificate of single statement. I am trying from 8 months to get it, I do have a notarized document stating that I am not married. And my passport says that as well

The thing is cartario in fiancé place is saying I do not need that certificate, but I am not sure, and it's a May be everywhere.
Please advise me what to do.

Regards
Ankush

Hello Ankush,

That should be sufficient, I'm not really certain. However, we do have a number of members here on the Brazil Forum who are from India and perhaps one of them will answer your question by telling you what they did.

Cheers,
William James Woodward, EB Experts Team