Birmingham families deal with a lot of foreign paperwork, and it rarely comes in a neat set. A Nikahnama from Mirpur. A Pakistani birth record. Land papers for a probate file. Somali school certificates. A Polish pension letter. We take the whole pile and put it into English that offices accept.
Every paper is signed, stamped and dated. It comes with a page giving the translator's name and our UK phone number. UKVI, HM Passport Office, the Register Office on Broad Street, the courts, Aston, UoB and BCU, and the QE and Heartlands hospitals all read it and move on.
One certificate usually costs £25 to £45. Family papers cost less when they come together. Documents from the same registry repeat the same names, villages and wording, so we do them as one job. Send us the whole pile and you get one price for all of it.
Most people who write to us have already been sent back once. The reason is usually small. A stamp left in Urdu. A court seal skipped. A name written one way on a birth record and another on a passport. Offices do not tell you which one it was. They just say no, and another two weeks go.
The work here has its own shape. Marriage papers from Pakistan and Bangladesh. Land records for probate in Sparkhill and Small Heath. Somali and Kurdish papers for court files. Polish and Romanian records for settled status. Every country writes things its own way, and your translator already knows the layout.
Health papers are the other big one, from GP sign ups in Handsworth to hospital notes brought over for the QE. Those go to translators with a medical background through our medical translation services, not to someone who has never read a hospital letter.
Send the papers and tell us who is going to read them. A caseworker, a registrar on Broad Street, a judge, a college or a GP each want it set out a bit differently. Our UK certified translation services team picks the right one. You get a fixed price within the hour.
If an office in the city has asked for something in English, we have almost certainly done it before. Here are the papers that come in most from around Birmingham, and the part of each one that decides the answer.
No appointment and nothing to post. One person handles the whole family set, so you never explain the story twice.
Front and back of each sheet. Include the margins and anything stamped later. Tell us which office will read it and how each name is spelt on the passport. Urdu, Punjabi and Bengali names can be written several ways in English, and a mismatch is the main reason files come back.
You get one price for the whole family set, not a price for each certificate. Papers from the same registry repeat the same names and wording, so the set costs much less than the parts added up. One page is usually £25 to £45, and we tell you the number before we start.
A second translator reads everything against your photos before we sign. They also check that every family name matches across the whole set. The stamped PDF comes within 24 hours. A signed paper copy goes by post to any Birmingham address.
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Urdu, Punjabi, Bengali and Somali make up a big share of the work here. Polish, Romanian and Arabic come in often too. Mirpuri, Pashto and Kurdish Sorani go to people who speak them from birth, not to someone guessing from a nearby language.
These are the reasons people around the city get in touch, and what the office on the other side is looking at when your file lands.
The biggest group here. Marriage papers, both partners' birth records and money proof usually travel together, so we do them as one set with every name matching.
Broad Street wants the foreign paper in full English before giving you a date. Where a divorce is involved they want the original stamped order, not a photocopy.
The NMC and GPhC want your qualifications in English before booking an exam. Hospitals and care homes want overseas police checks before a new starter joins a rota.
HR teams taking on several people at once send the whole batch together through our business translation services. The wording then matches across every file they keep.
Judges at the Justice Centre read English only. Dates and the exact words of a foreign ruling carry weight, so we do not soften or shorten anything.
Land papers and foreign wills come up often in Birmingham estates. Solicitors need every stamp, seal and margin note included before they can act.
A rejected file costs you weeks, not pounds. Two translators read every paper before it leaves us. If an office asks us to change something, we put it right free. Company and staff papers go through our business translation services on the same terms.
Parents applying for a first passport. Couples partway through a spouse visa. Families getting papers ready for a court date. Their words are here exactly as they sent them, from Handsworth to Solihull.