Notarial Services

 

 NOTARY SERVICES

 Apostilles, Notarial Certificates verifying signatures on Powers of Attorny, legal documents, etc., and copies of documents so they are legally valid abroad.

 ESCOBAR & ASSOCIATES ABOGADOS, THE SPANISH SPEAKING LAWYERS have years of experience in serving the Spanish-speaking community in Australia with this service. The process is as follows, for example, in the case of verifying the signature on a Power of Attorney, if the Principal does not have a draft of the Power of Attorney, we can draft the document as per your specifications, or if you have a draft, we would need the Principal to send us a copy of it, accompanied by copies of their passport and national identity card, by email. 

Upon receiving these documents, and in relation to the draft for example, we have to make some minor changes to some of its clauses, because generally these drafts do not include the information necessary to make them legally valid. For example, since we are the ones who are going to verify the signature/s on the document/s, we have to add our information, such as the name of the Notary, address, date, etc., and also, sometimes they omit some essential clauses that make them a legally invalid document, that is why we check the documents thorouoghly, so that there are none of these errors.

Having finished amending the document, we will begin to draft the sealed Notarial Certificate with the relevant information. From there, we meet with the Principal to verify his or her identity, and have him or her sign the document. If we are to witness the authenticity of a signature from an Principal living in another state, such as Queensland or Western Australia, the document would be sent there via email, to be printed by the Principal, and from there we can meet via WhatsApp, Zoom or Skype to verify his or her signature on the document. At the end of the session, this signed document should be returned to our office/firm by Express Post.

On that same day, or upon receiving the document by airmail, as we are affiliated with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Commerce (DFAC), we will personally send the documents to them so that within, more or less, a week and a half, they will return the documents registered with an Apostille.

The Principal also has the option of making an appointment by telephone with DFAC, so that the documents can be registered with the Apsotille, but since he or she is not registered with DFAC, DFAC would normally take a month or so to return t them the Apostilled documents.

What is the Apostille? It is an authentication stamp that is used to verify the signatures, seals, or stamps of notaries on important documents, such as court orders, contracts, civil registry certificates, marriage certificates, even educational diplomas, among others.
 
All seals and signatures of Notaries are officially recorded in a database maintained by DFAC.
 
Upon receiving the completed documents, we recommend that the Principal take a certified copy of them, and when he or she sends them overseas, they send them with the DHL logistics company, and not by Australia Post, to avoid loss or delay in sending the documents.