What is an Apostille and when do I require it?

We are living in a world where many illegalities take place in the form of forged and recreated documents that are ultimately misused. What will you do in case you receive a document from a foreign country, especially when the document is not written in a language you can not read? How would you know that the document that you have received is genuine?

To tackle the problem, the Hague Convention introduced a solution in the form of the Apostille service. Apostille is a French word that means literally means certification. As already have said the Apostille certificate is a product of a Hague Convention, a treaty among more than one hundred countries to allow documents issued in one country to be accepted in another.

The Foreign & Commonwealth Office qualify that the German document (in the aforementioned example) is true documents prepared, signed, stamped or sealed correctly and then issue the Apostille. This certificate is a simple piece of paper signed and stamped by the Foreign & Commonwealth Office. The Apostille is then signed by an official government officer.

Prior to the Hague Convention and the treaty among the member countries to allow documents issued in one country to be accepted in another, there were no set norms, and different countries had different necessities, measures and timescales for legalizing various documents. All that had been causing a great confusion and complicatedness, not to mention long delays because many countries used to process those documents through the courts. That was way, the Commonwealth and some other countries put the Apostille into practice in the year of 1961. However, there are still a number of countries that are not signatories to the treaty; but there are mechanisms established with the non-attached countries’ embassies and consulates to allow for the documents to be used.