The Indian Consulate in Houston authenticates documents originating in the following states:  Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Texas.

For a list of where to get your documents state certified, please click on this link which will take you to our friend Laura Morrison:   The Assistant Stork.  Laura maintains current information about the different state certification and vital records offices on her website.

Document Service

Turnaround Times

My Service & Fees

Items Needed

Shipping Info.

Document Authentication Services

Unfortunately, effective October 20, 2004, we had to discontinue our service to the Houston Indian Consulate.  In the past few months, the Consulate has been making mistakes on at least half of the documents submitted.  This has resulted in our having to make multiple trips to the Consulate to resolve each mistake.  In addition, the Consulate notified us that the only time we will be permitted to pick up documents will be between 4 and 5 PM.   Since that time conflicts with our daughter's school schedule, it is just no longer possible for us to offer service to this Consulate.   We sincerely regret any inconvenience that this decision will cause those families seeking to adopt from India.  We will monitor the situation carefully and if the Consulate's policy changes to where we can resume service, we will be happy to do so.

The Consulate fee for all adoption-related documents is $10 per document.  However, we often encounter situations where the Consular officials determine that a particular document, even though part of an adoption dossier, is a commercial or property matter.  For that document, the Consulate will charge a fee of $20.  

Please be advised that the decision of the Consular officials regarding the type of document is final. 

The Houston Indian Consulate does NOT offer expedited service.

Turnaround Times:

The turnaround times vary, as shown in the table below, depending on how your documents arrive at the Consulate.  

Consulate Service and Fee Comparison:

My Service and Fees

For your fee, I carefully review your documents and make sure that everything is O.K. before taking them to the consulate.  I then take them to the Consulate and submit them to the appropriate officials for processing.   

When the documents are turned in, I will notify you if the Consular officials determines that any document was commercial in nature and required the commercial fee.  To avoid delays caused by waiting for extra fees to arrive, most families include an additional $30 for Consulate fees.  This amount will be refunded to the family if the Consulate says it is not needed.

On the scheduled pick-up date, I will drive back to the Consulate, and:

• Pick-up all of the documents

• Check and make sure that the Consulate properly authenticated each document.

• Place the documents in the overnight shipping pack provided by the client.

• Drive the overnight package to an approved FedEx or UPS pick up location for return to the client.

When I send the authenticated documents back to each family, I include any extra money that was refunded by the Consulate along with itemized receipts for the Consulate fees and for my service fee.

My fees are:

$20 per document with a $100 minimum and a $240 maximum.  In other words:

• $100 for 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 documents,

•  $120 for 6 documents,

•  $140 for 7 documents,

•  $160 for 8 documents, 

•  $180 for 9 documents,

• $200 for 10 documents,

• $220 for 11 documents,

• $240 for 12, 13, 14, or 15 documents.

If you have more than 15 documents, please call or e-mail us for pricing.

Why are our service fees higher for the Houston Indian Consulate than for China or Guatemala?  The reason is that the Houston Indian Consulate - even when we give them clear instructions - often make mistakes which means we wind up having to make two (sometimes three) trips to the Consulate before everything is done properly.  As a result we need to charge more to cover the extra trips. 

If the Consulate does it correctly the first time, we will gladly charge the same $15/document rate that we do for China and Guatemala and rebate the overpayment back to you. 

Items You Will Need:

In addition to your state certified documents, you will need a:

1. Money order made payable to the "Consulate General of India in Houston" for the Consulate fees.

2. Xerox file copy of each document (the Consulate retains the file copy in their records).

3. Original passport for each parent (the Consulate does require the original passport - the passport will be returned to you with the authenticated documents).

4. Self-addressed, prepaid return FedEx or UPS express shipping pack envelope.

5. Personal check made payable to "Cindy Marut" for our fee.

Shipping Instructions:

When you are ready, please send the documents and payments to me using the shipping service of your choice (we recommend Federal Express or UPS)  to:

Cindy Marut

MyChinaDocs.Com

1860 FM 359, # 125

Richmond, TX  77469

Please e-mail before you send your documents so I'll know to look for them.

Please Note:  We recommend using FedEx for shipping documents.  FedEx has proven services that are very reliable and - almost always - deliver your documents on schedule.  UPS is also very reliable, but their deliveries can run up to an hour late.  United States Postal Service Express Mail, in our experience, is less reliable than FedEx or UPS.  USPS deliveries are often seven to twelve hours late and it seems to take them a long time to post tracking information about the shipment.  As a result, we encourage you to use Federal Express for fastest service.  

Important:  Never use any form of regular mail or USPS "Priority" Mail to ship dossier documents.  These services are NOT tracked.  If the postal service does not deliver your documents, there is no way to trace the package.

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