What does Apostille mean?

I came across the word Apostille today and have to confess I wasn’t quite sure what it meant. A few Google clicks later and I found that the word simply means “Certification”.

Have you heard of the Hague Convention Abolishing the Requirement for Legalisation for Foreign Public Documents, the Apostille Convention, or the Apostille Treaty? It is an international treaty drafted by the Hague Conference on Private International Law.

The convention specifies the modalities through which a document issued in one of the signatory countries can be certified for legal purposes in all the other signatory states. Such a certification is called an Apostille (French: certification). It is an international certification comparable to a notarisation in domestic law, and normally supplements a local notarisation of the document.

The Convention abolishes the requirement of diplomatic and consular legalisation for public documents originating in one Convention country and intended for use in another. For the purposes of the Convention, public documents include:
(a) documents emanating from a court,
(b) documents issued by an administrative authority (such as civil records), and
(c) documents executed before a notary. Such documents issued in a Convention country which have been certified by a Convention certificate, called an “Apostille”, are entitled to recognition in any other Convention country without any further authentication.

How to get a UK document legalised

You can get a UK public document ‘legalised’ by asking the UK government to confirm that a UK public official’s signature, seal or stamp on the document is genuine.

You might need to do this if a local authority abroad has asked you to provide a document and they’ve said it must be legalised.  For details, visit www.gov.uk/get-document-legalised

Publications

The Permanent Bureau – www.hcch.net/index_en.php?act=text.display&tid=37 – has produced a series of three publications on the practical operation of the Apostille Convention.

• The ABCs of Apostilles is a brochure that is primarily addressed to users of Apostilles with short answers to frequently asked questions, including when, where and how Apostilles are issued and what their effects are. Download here.
• How to Join and Implement the Hague Apostille Convention is a brief guide that is designed to assist authorities in new and potential Contracting States in implementing the Convention. Download here.
• The Apostille Handbook is a comprehensive reference tool that is designed to assist Competent Authorities in performing their functions under the Apostille Convention, as well as address issues that arise in the contemporary operation of the Convention. Download here.

Countries which accept the Apostille Certificate

For a list of Countries which accept the Apostille Certificate, please visit onesmartplace.com/featured-zones

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Martin Pollins

Managing Director at One Smart Place

Martin Pollins is a Chartered Accountant and MBA with wide experience in corporate finance and business management. He has served on the boards of several companies, including those listed on the London Stock Exchange, AIM and OFEX. He is Chairman and Founder of OneSmartPlace and was a Council member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales from 1988 to 1996. He was managing partner of PRB Martin Pollins, based in Sussex, the first Accountancy firm to advertise on British television.He went on to create and launch the CharterGroup Partnership (the UK’s first Accountancy network) and then LawGroup UK (at the time, one of the largest networks of lawyers in the UK). In recent years, he helped to raise several £millions to fund British films such as The Da Vinci Code, Bridge of San Luis Rey, Head in the Clouds and Merchant of Venice with actors such as Charlize Theron, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, F. Murray Abraham. Kathy Bates, Gabriel Byrne, Geraldine Chaplin, Tom Hanks, Ian McKellen, Audrey Tautou, Penélope Cruz, Steven Berkoff, Lynn Collins, Jeremy Irons, Joseph Fiennes and many more.

He has written over 700 business publications (see Glossaries at http://onesmartplace.com/resources/glossaries/) and is editor of Better Business Focus (see http://onesmartplace.com/resources/better-business-focus-magazine). His Blog, on a wide range of subjects can be found at: http://onesmartplace.com/blog/

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