Legalisations & Notary Services

Appleton’s are able to provide a wide range of legalisation and Notary services.

Legalisation is the process by which the signature, seal or stamp of a notary on a document is authenticated by the Foreign & Commonwealth Office.

In order to use British documents overseas, you may be asked to have your documents legalised before they can be accepted by the foreign authorities concerned. Documents with an Apostille should be recognized as legal without any further evidence in another member country.

In countries which are not signatories to the 1961 Hague Convention and do not recognize the apostille, a foreign public document must be legalized by the consular office of the country from which the documents are issued, in addition to the Apostille.

We are able to 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 is not limited to UK or overseas corporate documents but also include a wide range of documents for individuals too.