At Down Under Visa we are sometimes inundated with problems with NSO documents. NSO = National Statistics Office, also known as the Philippines Statistics Authority, is the Government department in the Philippines that keeps records of births, deaths and marriages. Marriage certificates, birth certificates, death certificates and CENOMAR’s (Certificates of No Marriage). Much like the various state Department of Births, Deaths and Marriages in Australia, except it’s all centralized and national.

Jeff with umbrella (and slimmer physique)

Mistakes happen all the time! Around 1:10 documents received has problems and mistakes. And yes, we are sick to death of it! These mistakes cause delays and stress to everyone concerned, and as mentioned in the last BLOG article sometimes it causes clients to lash at us as we are the bearer of the bad news. We feel really really sorry for our clients when we see these problems, especially when they are not caused by them. However we still have to tell you the truth. That’s why you engaged our professional services as Registered Migration Agents, and we don’t back away from that.

Fact is, if you don’t get mistakes corrected legally, it will come back and bite you hard with a refusal of your visa application and a three year ban for submitting what are considered bogus documents under Regulation 4020. Wrong information, even if it’s a mistake and not intended, makes these documents bogus in the eyes of the Department of Immigration and Border Protection.

Solutions to bogus documents (NSO document errors)

In short? There is no absolute solution. We will continue to see errors. We don’t like it, but this is what will keep happening until a culture of accuracy with paperwork develops in the Philippines. I hope it does, but I suspect it’s a long way off.

What I will do is to implore you to be very very careful when you are submitting information for documents here, especially for births and marriages. When you have babies and when you tie the knot, make sure they get names, dates and places right! Look over their shoulders. If they get it wrong, pounce on them! Tell them it’s wrong, and tell them what it should be. Your details. The bride’s. The child’s. Parent details. Explain to them that middle-names in Australia are not the same as middle-names in Philippines. Make sure that places of birth and countries of birth are correct, because you wouldn’t believe how often an Australian is listed as being born in the Philippines!

The other thing is that we are associated with a firm of decent and professional attorneys in Quezon City who don’t overcharge and who will not waste clients time with bad advice. And no, we don’t get a “cut”. It’s in our interest to see our clients get these matters corrected properly and as quickly as possible. That’s enough for us. Let us know and we will give you their contact details.

Managing your NSO documents professionally

We’ve come up with another solution which will make the visa application process and the gathering of visa requirements easier all round, and also ease the pressure on the applicant to organise the required NSO documents promptly and correctly. We will be ordering the required documents directly from the NSO for the applicant and any dependent children on your behalf, and having them delivered directly to our office. So no need for her to travel and queue up at the NSO office.

I thought about this after we had yet another client, in this case deliberately, supply us with bogus NSO documents! Yes, we knew they were fakes. We’re good at what we do. We get tired of this too, especially how in this case the husband was the innocent party and there was a remaining husband in the wings. With us ordering documents directly from the NSO, there will be no more deliberate fraud slipping through and no more cases of naïve applicants getting conned into buying dodgy documents off corrupt officials.

Please watch this space for further details. This will be one more way that Down Under Visa will raise the bar of integrity as well as the bar of quality client service.