An apostille is a certificate confirming the signature and seal of the notary. This step is known as ‘legalisation’ and involves submitting the document to the Foreign & Commonwealth Office so that they can attach an ‘apostille’.
For some states, however, it is necessary to complete an additional step after the notarization. In England and Wales in particular, public notaries tend to be familiar with the notarization of documents for the United States, as there are many US citizens living in London and across England and Wales, and there is usually a few weeks’ waiting period for a notary appointment at the US embassy in London.ĭocuments notarized by a notary public in the UK are perfectly acceptable in the United States. In those situations, the laws of the different states allow for the notarization to take place outside the United States, by taking the document to either the US embassy or a local notary public.
For instance, a British law student planning to sit the New York State Bar Exam will be asked to send a ‘notarized’ application form. Nationals from other countries but with close connections to America can also see themselves in similar situations. This could happen, for instance, to a property owner from California who is currently living in London, England, and needs to sign a power of attorney so that lawyers in California can take care of the sale. It is a relatively common situation that a US citizen is temporarily or permanently based outside the United States but needs to send a notarized document to be used back home. A jurat is a similar certification but used for affidavits, which must be signed under oath. An acknowledgment certificate is usually a paragraph typed at the end of a document, in which the notary public confirms that the person signing the document has been identified by the notary, has confirmed to the notary that he/she understands the document and wants it to have legal effect, and finally acknowledges that the signature on the document is truly his or hers. The two typical examples of notarial certificates for which a prescribed form of words are provided are ‘acknowledgment certificates’ and ‘jurats’. Many states of the USA have laws that establish the specific wording that the notaries of that state must use when certifying certain documents, such as deeds or affidavits. The website of The American Society of Notaries provides detailed information about the duties and qualifications of public notaries in the different US states. For instance, notaries in states such as Florida or Nevada can solemnise marriages, while in many other states this is not included within the authorised duties of a notary.
The legislation of the different US states determines how notaries are appointed and what their duties are in that particular state. Though we are not US notaries, we frequently notarize documents for the USA without problems. For many of these documents, it is the law of a particular state that imposes the notarization requirement but there are also documents requiring notarization under federal laws – an example of this would be a statement of consent for the issuance of a US passport to a minor under age 16. declarations sworn under oath), powers of attorney and a variety of other legal instruments. The categories of document that may require notarization range from deeds (such as ‘quitclaim deeds’ or ‘warranty deeds’), affidavits (i.e. This typically includes documents used for the transfer or conveyance of property, documentation related to mortgages and finance, letters of authorisation or consent, and many others. The legal systems of the different states of the United States of America often require documents to be notarised – or to use the US spelling, notarized.