Hello everyone,
I'm a US Citizen and have been married to my Dutch wife for over 3 years now. We have lived together the entire time but for 2 years we lived in the US. I have everything required to apply for naturalization, except for the proof that we lived together while in the USA.
Usually in the US utility bills, tax returns or a rental agreement are sufficient to prove your residency, but my gemeente wants an "official paper from my city hall showing where we lived and that we resided at the same address." The problem is that the US doesn't really have that sort of paper. At least not that I'm aware of. I informed my gemeente of this and they suggested that I "wait until I've lived here for 3 years and then I won't need that paper."
Do any of you have any idea where I can get this paper or some other solution?
Thanks
wittebol said:
Hello everyone,
I'm a US Citizen and have been married to my Dutch wife for over 3 years now. We have lived together the entire time but for 2 years we lived in the US. I have everything required to apply for naturalization, except for the proof that we lived together while in the USA.
Usually in the US utility bills, tax returns or a rental agreement are sufficient to prove your residency, but my gemeente wants an "official paper from my city hall showing where we lived and that we resided at the same address." The problem is that the US doesn't really have that sort of paper. At least not that I'm aware of. I informed my gemeente of this and they suggested that I "wait until I've lived here for 3 years and then I won't need that paper."
Do any of you have any idea where I can get this paper or some other solution?
Thanks
You can try showing them your federal and state income tax returns for the relevant time period. You can get certified copies of your federal tax returns by calling the IRS:
800.829.1040.
Then I would suggest getting an apostille for the certified copies, if that's not possible, take them to a Dutch embassy in the states for legalization.
Christian Barth, Attorney
christianbarth said:
Usually in the US utility bills, tax returns or a rental agreement are sufficient to prove your residency, but my gemeente wants an "official paper from my city hall showing where we lived and that we resided at the same address." The problem is that the US doesn't really have that sort of paper. At least not that I'm aware of. I informed my gemeente of this and they suggested that I "wait until I've lived here for 3 years and then I won't need that paper."
Do any of you have any idea where I can get this paper or some other solution?
Thanks
You can try showing them your federal and state income tax returns for the relevant time period. You can get certified copies of your federal tax returns by calling the IRS:
800.829.1040.
Then I would suggest getting an apostille for the certified copies, if that's not possible, take them to a Dutch embassy in the states for legalization.
Christian Barth, Attorney
Dutch embassies in the US do not legalize US documents, because both the Netherlands and the US are parties to the Apostille treaty (which in full is named 'Convention Abolishing the Requirement of Legalisation for Foreign Public Documents'). Apostilling is the only way to go, for federal documents such as from the IRS, it has to be done by the US Department of State (and the document has to have a signature on it from an IRS official, otherwise it can't be apostilled).
Anyhow, even if they did legalize documents, the way legalization works is that you first have to get the foreign document stamped by the foreign country's ministry of foreign affairs (= the Department of State in the US), and the Dutch embassy can verify the validity of that stamp. The Dutch embassy would not be able to independently verify the genuineness of an IRS document.
However, I suspect that what the gemeente told you was a case of 'low level Dutch civil servant not really knowing what they are talking about and assuming the rest of the world works the same way as the Netherlands'-itis. Higher-level civil servants, as in the ones that actually make decisions on naturalization applications when they are passed upstairs, are generally quite aware that Anglo-Saxon countries like the US and the UK do not have such a thing as address registration and will accept official-ish proof of living together, basically anything that clearly cannot be faked such as bank statements or utility bills.
Try to file your naturalization petition anyways, against the advice of the counter worker at your gemeente (because they can't actually refuse to accept your petition, they can only advise you that they think it's not enough), and when the IND processes it, they will come back at you if it's insufficient proof for them.
NOTE: the one thing that IS completely fatal for "X years of living in a foreign country + Y years of living in NL = 3 years" is if you did not both register at your Dutch address on exactly the same day upon moving to the Netherlands. Your spouse registering on Monday and you registering on Tuesday means a gap in your living together without interruption for 3 years and does mean you have to start over.
avocado said:
christianbarth said:
You can try showing them your federal and state income tax returns for the relevant time period. You can get certified copies of your federal tax returns by calling the IRS:
800.829.1040.
Then I would suggest getting an apostille for the certified copies, if that's not possible, take them to a Dutch embassy in the states for legalization.
Christian Barth, Attorney
Dutch embassies in the US do not legalize US documents, because both the Netherlands and the US are parties to the Apostille treaty (which in full is named 'Convention Abolishing the Requirement of Legalisation for Foreign Public Documents'). Apostilling is the only way to go.
I didn't say that Dutch embassies in the US legalize US documents.
When I said 'if that's not possible, try legalization', it was for the benefit of the many readers of this forum who are not citizens of countries that signed the apostille treaty. The reason an apostille would not be possible, is for situations where the reader is a citizen of a country which unlike the Netherlands and the USA did not sign the apostille treaty'. Of course it's possible for the original poster's situation but that's why I added, 'if that's not possible' to help others.
Christian Barth, Attorney
www.expatlaw.nl
