You will find a range of businesses claiming to be able to help fulfil your needs when it comes to Apostille certification and document legalisation, but you really need to narrow it down to companies that can truly help you. We pride ourselves in our convenient, bespoke legalisation services that have made us a truly leading player in the world of Apostille and Document Legalisation in North and South America. We are trusted by thousands of private and corporate clients to carry out their document certification needs because they know we can provide a level of service that very few others can. We work regularly with a wide variety of documents, both corporate and personal, so we always know exactly how the process should run. We have a team of in-house lawyers ready and waiting to ensure that your legalisation process runs as smoothly as possible, so you can be confident that you are in very safe hands.
Our strategically placed offices, including a busy office in New York, as well as a selection of other European bases, allow us to maintain strong governmental and consular relationships that make us a truly global business. We can utilise these relationships to ensure that your process completes faster, with less cost and less stress.
We have worked historically across all parts of the Americas. We have worked extensively in the tricky legalisation worlds of the USA and Canada, where special processes need to be in place depending on which state or province the documents originate in. We have also provided document legalisation services to many clients in Central America, including assisting with the immigration and foreign education needs of clients in the likes of Mexico, Panama, and Puerto Rico. We have worked across the whole of South America, particularly in Brazil, Argentina, and Chile, to provide services to clients needing help with foreign business dealings and legal documents. We have even worked across a range of the Caribbean nations, including Jamaica and the British Virgin Islands in particular.
What is Apostille?
In 1961, the “Hague Convention Abolishing the Requirement of Legalisation for Foreign Public Documents” was drafted, in a bid to create a simpler method for authenticating documents to be used in other countries. This is otherwise known as Apostille.
Put simply, Apostille is a legal certification that makes a document from one country valid in another country, as long as both countries have signed up to the Hague Convention.
If one of the countries involved is not signed up to the Convention, then that can make things trickier. This is not a situation that you are likely to come across when it comes to North America, South America, Central America, and the Caribbean nations. Most of these countries are signed up to the convention, though that does not mean that the process is necessarily simple and straightforward. Take the USA for example, where you must follow the specific Apostille process of the State that issued the document in the first place, as mentioned above. That’s why you should consider using the services of Apostille and Legalisation experts like us.
What services can we provide for Clients from North and South America?
As specialists in our field, you can remain completely content in the fact that there are no surprises left for us at this point. Our team of crack in-house lawyers has seen it all, across the years and years of experience they collectively boast. We strive to explain the process to you in a simple way that will leave your route to completion clear and straight-forward and will be able to answer any queries you may have about your Apostille or Consular Legalisation process. Our strong relationships with global consulates let us put more time into building strong working relationships with our private and corporate clients, based on open lines of communication and outstanding knowledge of our area.
All official documentation from a particular country requires either Apostille certification or a different Legalisation process to be followed in order for it to be recognised in a foreign state. The main documentation we deal with in the Americas regularly includes:
- Immigration paperwork like visas and identification documents
- Vital documents – Birth, Marriage, and Death certificates for North America
- Education records – particularly for those moving into tertiary education in a foreign country
- Health records – for use in a variety of cases, including insurance and work-related needs
- Criminal Record and Background checks
- Business documentation – for example, documents needed for opening new branches in foreign countries, or completing business negotiations with other companies
- Documents for the purchase and/or sale of property
- Personal and corporate financial documentation
We are not just a run-of-the-mill Apostille firm. We also operate a legalised translation service – certifiedtranslations.ie. On many occasions, foreign documents will need to be translated into a different language before the receiving nation will recognise them legally. Both the original document and its translation must be certified separately. We particularly find this useful in our dealings across North America, especially the French-speaking portions of Canada, as well as dealings between Mexico and the USA. It is of the utmost importance that those documents go through the correct legalisation process to allow them to be officially recognised, and running our own in-house translation service, allows us to oversee every aspect of your process, meaning there are less mistakes, less time wasted, and less stress caused.
The Process of Legalisation of American documents
From the outside, the process of Apostille certification or Document Legalisation can seem complicated and, at times, intimidating. We begin by discussing with every client exactly what it is they need. We discuss the documents and the associated countries, and we look at the process that those documents will need to go through. We can get to work on your documents much faster than other firms, as those strong consular relationships are already in place, and we can make contact swiftly and easily to get the ball rolling. You will be kept informed every step of the way and will find that at the end of your process, you are left with a set of officially recognised and certified documents that will allow your further transactions to pass by without a hitch, and you will also be left with the tremendous feeling of satisfaction that comes from knowing you made the right choice in selecting us to manage your process.
