Once you have been issued your notarial act by the Notary, the intended recipient of the document in the foreign country must decide whether to accept it or not. There are a number of different considerations for the recipient, such as whether the information provided is (or appears to be) accurate and consistent, whether the document and the notarial authentication are in the correct form, etc.
In some jurisdictions, the notarial act will be accepted without any further authentication This is most likely to be a jurisdiction that is part of the Commonwealth or formerly a British colony, such as Australia or Canada. In other jurisdictions, the recipient will require further authentication; this is where apostilles and legalisation comes in.
We can advise you on whether your document will be valid just with the notarisation or whether it also needs to be legalised at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office with an apostille. This apostille is sometimes known as the Hague Apostille. For countries that are a party to the Hague Convention documents need only be legalised with the apostille in order to be accepted. For other countries; for example China, the documents also require Consular legalisation in order to be accepted.
The Apostille and Legalisation services are offered at the Foreign Commonwealth Office and we can assist you in having your document legalised by them. If you wish to seek further information with regards to this please do not hesitate to contact us.
