Marriage to a Malaysian citizen

I am currently living in the England with my Chinese Malaysian girlfriend. We plan to come to Malaysia in August to live and work. She is of course a Malysian citizen and we both want to get married in Malaysia. I am a highly experienced process and development engineer in the polymer industry and I would like to look for work in Malaysia.
What will be my residence status when I come to Malaysia and get married there?
Will I be able to work?

Brian,

Check out the immigration dept website (special programmes).

If you are married, you can get a 1 year visa provided that you have a bona fide job offer. If unmarried, you will have to jump through the usual hoops, I'm afraid.

To marry in Malaysia, you needed to legalise your Birth Certificate, Unmarried Certificate (for Divorcee, Divorce Certificate) at Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Malaysian Embassy in England. Why? Because you cannot just simply comes and says: I want to marry her. You have to submit those documents and proven there are certified to be true. In the meantime, you can consult what are the procedures needs to be taken from the Malaysian Embassy in England, I am sure they will give you fully information what to proceed.

Good luck.

If I marry in England, what will be the procedure for validating the marriage in Malaysia?

If I marry in England, what procedure to validate the marriage in Malaysia?

If you get married in England, you can validate and get certification from the Malaysian Embassy in England, before coming to Malaysia. This procedure would also save you all unnecessary hassle and hustle.

If you look for work in Malaysia, you need to apply for Work Pass under a willing Employer to sponsor your job and stay in Malaysia.

You might like to visit: http://www.ipcshopping.com or other job listing websites to find a suitable job for yourself here.

Good luck and best wishes.

Even though I will be married in England and then the marriage validated in Malaysia, when I travel there, my passport will be stamped with the visitor's pass for 3 months. Can I extend this by applying for an extension as I am now a "foreign spouse" of a Malaysian citizen or do I need to have an offer of employment? If I have no offer of employment I presume that I can leave the country before my visitor's pass has expired and then return to Malaysia for a further 3 months.

Brian,

You are absolutely right about the Visit Pass and Extension of Stay. But the length of stay relies and depends on the discretion of the Immigration Officers. It is not necessarily a 3-months Visit Pass; it could be One or Two weeks and you have to leave.

If you already have an employment waiting in hand, so that the employer could immediately apply a Work Pass for you, then it would save you all the unnecessary hassle and hustle.