LAC Lawyers offers Notary Services at our Chatswood Office. Please contact us on 9904 6800 to make an enquiry or an appointment.
How can we help you ?
Full notarial services are available in respect of both documents in public and private form. Under the Hague Convention public documents are basically defined as:
- Documents issued by a court or tribunal
- Administrative documents
- Notarial Acts
- Official certificates including notarised documents
Australian public documents may need to be apostilled or legalised depending on whether or not they are Hague Convention countries. We are able to assist individuals or businesses with the authentication process as a notary public. The most common documents requiring authentication are:
- Adoption applications
- Birth, Death and Marriage Certificates
- Certified language translations
- Certificates of Divorce issued by the Family Court of Australia
- Certificates of Incorporation of Australian companies issued by ASIC
- Certificates of No Impediment to Overseas Marriages
- Change of Name documents – Deed Polls
- Commercial, corporate documents
- Doctors’ and dentists’ applications for overseas appointments
- International Affidavits, sworn statements and depositions
- Land Transfer documents
- Notarial Certificates of Good Standing in respect of Australian companies
- Notarised copies of Passports, Drivers Licenses and other identity documents
- Notarised Australian original public documents for use overseas
- Original university, TAFE and secondary school degrees, certificates and transcripts certified by an authorised officer or copies certified by a Notary Public
- Police Certificates issued by State or Federal Police attesting to the absence of a criminal record.
- Probate, Letters of Administration and deceased Estate documents
- Powers of Attorney
- Single Status Certificates
- Statutory Declarations
If a document is a bogus or forged document we will not notarise it.
What is a Notary and how does it work?
From 3 January 1986 notaries were appointed in New South Wales under the Public Notaries Act 1985 which was repealed by the Public Notaries Act 1997 commencing 26 June 1998. Only a legal practitioner who has held a full practising certificate for at least five years or more and is of good name and character can be appointed a notary public. A notary public is authorised by law to certify and attest documents required for use in overseas countries.
A document is notarised in NSW by a notary public when they affix their signature and official seal to a document certifying the due execution of it or verifying some fact or thing done in their presence which includes witnessing a signature to document(s) for use overseas or in Australia.
Once a document has been duly notarised it is required to be legalised and this is the process by which the signature and seal of a notary public is authenticated before a notarised document is valid in a foreign country e.g. Chile. A document is duly notarised when a notary public affixes their official seal to a document(s).
An official record of a notary’s seal and signature is recorded in a special data base maintained by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) which is authorised to issue apostille or authentication certificates authenticating the signature and seal of a notary on Australian public documents. Ninety five percent of a notary’s functions will comprise verifying signatures or authenticating documents.
Legalisation
Legalisation is the process by which DFAT authenticates the notary’s seal and signature held on record by them. Before a notary does any act or thing with respect to a document they should ascertain the practice in the foreign country in order to ensure that it can be effectively authenticated.
Currently documents need to be legalised or apostilled before they will be accepted overseas. Since 16 March 1995 public documents used in Hague Convention countries no longer need to be legalised but sealed with an apostille. The issue of an apostille means that the document does not need to be recertified in Australia by the foreign mission of the host country.
Foreign governments or businesses usually require Australian public documents to either be apostilled by the Australian government through DFAT which issues apostille certificates or legalised by their embassies or consulates in Australia, where they have one. It is DFAT which issues the apostille or authentication certificates authenticating the seals and signatories of Australian notary publics.
Apostille documents are accepted between all countries who are signatories to the Hague Convention. An apostille certificate dramatically simplifies the formalities associated with using public documents outside Australia. The costs associated with having a document legalised or authenticated in a non-participating country are far more expensive as local jurisdictional matters have to be considered before the documents are executed. Where documents are required to be notarised and they are in a foreign language a full translation of them must be obtained by the client and furnished to the notary before this can be done.
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