Apostille Courier Services

The best way to explain what an apostille courier service is, is to simply break it down. First, what is an apostille? Simply stated, when a country needs to recognize important documents from another country, the document must be “legalized”, or “certified” (these are other industry recognized terminology related to apostilling) before they will be accepted by the other country. In other words, you can’t just bring your birth certificate or death certificate or Power of Attorney or copy of your drivers license or court documents etc to another country without first obtaining an apostille for each document. An apostille can only LEGALLY be obtained from either a Secretary of State office or the Federal Government (UDOS), depending upon what type of document it is. For example, if you need your FBI Criminal Background Report apostilled, that would need to go to the USDOS since it’s a Federal document and state court documents (ie: divorce etc) would need to go the Secretary of State’s office for that city/county/state. There are specifications as to how documents need to be submitted to each government office to ensure an apostille will be provided. If not submitted properly, the request for the apostille will be rejected. Next, the word “courier” can be defined as “a person or company that takes letters, documents, or parcels from one place to another”. The term courier comes from the Latin word “currere”, meaning “to run”. Courier service began with someone running between destinations, delivering messages and news on foot. Only much later did courier service include packages and become more strategic and sophisticated. If you ship your documents directly to a state or federal office, you need to ensure that your document/s are submitted using the correct submission forms with all the required information and that your documents are properly certified/notarized. If any of these things are not done correctly, your request for an apostille will be rejected, and in most cases, it will take a minimum of a few weeks for you to find out after your documents are reviewed, and then mailed back to you. If you choose to use a courier service, you’ll need to ensure that they take the responsibility to review your documents to make sure the are sufficient to obtain the apostille. Remember, a “courier” by definition means that they transport information, NOT that they are knowledgeable or experienced in knowing the correct way to submit documents to a government office. If you rely on a courier to ensure your documents are OK, you may be in for a surprise to learn that your documents haven’t been apostilled and that you need to figure out why and then resubmit them. This can be a frustrating situation, especially if you have a deadline to obtain the documents. Not only that, but you’ll most likely have paid for shipping and courier services, even though you didn’t get what you needed. Be careful and be sure to use a full service certified apostille provider who knows how to correctly submit documents. It removes all the hassle and concern, and in many situations, can obtain the apostilles much quicker than if you were to do it yourself. If you’re not sure if you need an original document, or a photocopy of a document, or if you need any documents translated, you want to rely on an expert to help you through the process. If you’re not sure how to correctly submit, or what a correct completed notarial certificate is, the experience will feel more like having a blindfold on your eyes and throwing a dart at a dartboard and hoping to get a bullseye. It would be possible, but highly unlikely. Nobody has time nowadays to redo a process a second or third time. We all have a lot on our plates. We like to check things off of our checklists when they’re finished so we can move on to the next task or item on the checklist. A certified apostille agent is well worth the cost so you can get what you need ASAP, with no hassles. An experienced agent may be aware of alternative choices you may have in choosing the best way to obtain a notarization and/or apostille due to exceptions for each state. For example, they typical processing time with the USDOS for apostilles for Federal background checks is approximately 2-3 wees as of the time this article is written. If you can’t wait that long, we can offer 2 other legal options to meet your time restraint Florida Notary Public, LLC has been providing notary/apostille/certified/notarized translation services for over 10 years. We provide a full review of documents and handle all the legwork and back office arrangements for you. We work with individuals and companies throughout the United States, and the world. We can ship final documents to other countries if needed.