Dear Sir/Madam,

I am writing to formally request assistance and intervention from the Department of Home Affairs regarding the registration of our marriage, which was solemnised on 24 August 2024.

My husband and I were married in an Ante Nuptial Contract (ANC) marriage on 24 August 2024. Since before the time, we have made several attempts to have our marriage properly registered with the Department of Home Affairs, but we have unfortunately been unable to obtain a clear and lawful procedure for completing the registration.

The main difficulty relates to my husband's previous marital status.
My husband was legally divorced in 2014. His divorce decree was submitted to the South African Consulate in 2020.

During 2024, we also submitted the divorce decree to the Home Affairs office in Middelburg on multiple occasions, specifically to ensure that his marital status was corrected before/around the time of our marriage.

Despite our repeated attempts and submission of the required documentation, his marital status was only changed on the Home Affairs system in February 2025.

Hee was already legally divorced from his previous marriage since 2014, and the relevant divorce documentation had been available to the authorities since 2020.

The delay in updating his marital status was therefore not caused by us.

We are now trying to have our marriage from 24 August 2024 registered.

Friday 7 August 2026 I went to the Department of home affairs in Middelburg Mpumalanga to find our inregards to the problem they told me that we need to find the marriage offical and get him to bring that marriage register to them so that they can register our marriage.

Tuesday 11 August 2026 my myself and the marriage official / pastor went to the Department of home affairs in Middelburg Mpumalanga, we have repeatedly been told by them that the pastor had only 3–5 days in which to register the marriage and that, because this period has passed, the pastor must supposedly marry us again.

We respectfully request clarification regarding this requirement.

We have been unable to find a legal provision that means that a marriage which was validly solemnised automatically becomes invalid simply because the marriage officer did not submit the registration documentation within a particular administrative period, which he could not as the delay that Department of home affairs had in correcting my husband's marital status on there system.

We therefore respectfully request that the Department provide us with the exact section of the applicable Act, regulation, Government Gazette, departmental directive or other legal authority which states that our pastor had only 3–5 days to register our ANC marriage.

If there is indeed such a statutory or regulatory requirement, we respectfully ask the Department to explain:

What is the prescribed procedure for dealing with a marriage that was properly solemnised but was not registered within the required period?

Is there a procedure for late registration or retrospective registration of our marriage?

Can our marriage, which was solemnised on 24 August 2024, be registered using the original date of marriage if the Department is satisfied that all legal requirements for the marriage were met at the time?

If the Department maintains that we must be married again, please provide the specific legal basis for requiring a second marriage ceremony?

Please explain what effect, if any, the delayed correction of my husband's marital status in February 2025 has on our marriage, considering that his previous marriage had already been legally dissolved in 2014.

Please provide us with a complete list of the documents and forms required to apply for the late registration of our marriage.

If the Middelburg Home Affairs office cannot process the matter, please advise us which Head Office department, Marriage Services section or senior official is authorised to deal with this type of case.

We would like to emphasise that we are not asking Home Affairs to disregard any legal requirement. We simply want to understand the correct legal procedure and have our marriage properly recorded.

We have made numerous attempts to resolve this matter and have cooperated with Home Affairs by providing the divorce decree.

We should not be placed in a position where we are simply told that we must marry again without being given the legal basis for that instruction or a formal process through which our existing marriage can be investigated and, where legally permissible, registered.

The circumstances are particularly concerning because:

My husband's previous marriage ended by divorce in 2014.
His divorce decree was submitted to the South African Consulate in 2020.

We submitted the divorce documentation to Home Affairs Middelburg Mpumalanga several times during 2024.

We were married on 24 August 2024.
Home Affairs only updated his marital status in February 2025.