Requesting of documents from the civil registration office

Requesting of documents - is the re-issuance of certificates, issued by the civil registration offices (CRO), obtaining duplicates of such documents, as well as obtaining extracts from the CROs concerning certain legal records (birth extract certificate, extract confirming the maiden name, a single mother extract certificate).

There are several types of certificates in circulation in Ukraine nowadays, each of which is a valid document and has legal force:

• new model certificates that do not have legalization limits (issued after November 2015);
• new model certificates that have legalization limits  (issued before November 2015);
• certificates on Ukrainian forms of the old sample;
• ertificates on Soviet-style forms, issued after August 24, 1991;
• certificates on Soviet-style forms, issued before August 24, 1991.

As we have already noted, even certificates of the old Soviet-style samples do not officially lose their legal force. However, each of these sample certificates has its own peculiarities of legalization and affixing of an apostille. That is why old-style certificates often need to be updated. Yes, the Soviet-style forms certificates, issued before August 24, 1991 can be apostilled only through a notarized copy. The rest of the certificates must be updated if it is necessary to put an apostille on them.

WHERE TO GET A DUPLICATE OF THE CERTIFICATE

You can get a duplicate of the birth certificate at the CRO department in person or through a representative. The representative can be a person, authorized by a power of attorney, as well as a person who has a family relationship with the person whose documents are requested. There are some nuances with the last option. In particular, parents can get a duplicate birth certificate of their children without any authorization. In their turn, children cannot receive their parents' birth certificate, they can only receive an extract of a birth certificate of their parents. Also, for example, children can get an extract of their parents' marriage, while parents cannot get such a document for their children.

GET A DUPLICATE OF THE SOVIET-MODEL CERTIFICATE

How to restore the birth certificate of the USSR in Ukraine. Act records of the CRO department are kept for 75 years, after that local archival institutions are responsible for their storage. Accordingly, if you need to obtain a birth certificate of a person born before 1946, you need to contact the archival institution at the place of birth registration. Of course, you can also contact the CRO, but according to the procedure, the CRO will make a request to the archive. In the event that the archive does not contain information about the act record (which happens quite often), it will not be possible to get a certificate. It is necessary to go through the procedure of establishing a legal fact through a court.
Citizens of Ukraine who were born, married or died on the territory of other republics of the former USSR can obtain a duplicate of such a certificate also through the Ukrainian CROs. However, the procedure for obtaining a certificate is quite complicated, as it requires an international request to the modern country on whose territory the certificate was issued. Of course, this does not apply to countries with which Ukraine has severed diplomatic relations.

HOW TO RESTORE A BIRTH CERTIFICATE

If you discover the fact that your birth certificate is lost, do not panic, it is usually quite easy to restore a birth certificate. In order to restore your birth certificate, you need to contact the CRO department or lawyers, who can also act as your representatives in the birth certificate renewal procedure, personally or through a representative. You can restore your birth certificate even online or while being abroad. You can read more about how to restore a birth certificate remotely on the page Issuing duplicate documents in the Legal services section.

HOW TO RESTORE A MARRIAGE CERTIFICATE

The procedure for restoring a marriage certificate is similar to the procedure for restoring a birth certificate. In this context, we would like to talk about an issue of restoring the marriage certificate in the event that this marriage has already been dissolved. If the marriage has already been dissolved by the CRO or by the court, it is impossible to get the certificate itself again. The document that you can receive will be in the form of an extract. In addition, an extract confirming the maiden name is a frequently a requested document. This is a document that lists all registered marriages of a person, information about their termination, as well as changes of last names when registering marriages and divorces.
As for dissolution of a marriage, the following should be noted. The dissolution of marriage can be carried out by the CRO department (with the mutual consent and presence of the spouses) or by the court (in case of a dispute, joint children or the impossibility of the presence of both spouses). When registering a dissolution of marriage, the CRO issues a divorce certificate. The court issues a court decision on divorce.

Where to restore the divorce certificate? It is important to note that all court decisions issued after 27.07.2010 are final documents confirming the fact of divorce. Therefore, if the divorce was conducted by the court after 2010, then it is not the divorce certificate that needs to be restored, but rather the court decision, and not in the CRO department, but in the court that examined the divorce case. If the divorce was conducted by the court before 27.07.2010, the court decision should have been registered in the Civil registration office. When restoring such a divorce document, you need to contact the CRO department, which will issue the divorce certificate itself. At the same time, the majority of citizens do not go to the CRO department after receiving the court decision. In this case, the restoration of the divorce certificate excludes the participation of the representative in the process, since each of the spouses must personally appear at the CRO with a passport to complete the divorce registration procedure.

HOW TO RESTORE A DEATH CERTIFICATE

The peculiarity of the renewal of this document is that only close relatives, who have documents confirming family relationships, can act as applicants. In addition, in this context, it is worth mentioning the restoration, or rather the obtaining of certificates that were issued in the temporarily occupied territories. Most of the appeals concern obtaining a death certificate issued in the occupied territories. The procedure for obtaining such a death certificate takes place in court. You can learn more about this procedure on the page Establishing legal facts in the Legal services section.