Remote Notarization and Apostille Services

Meet Jonathan and Will,

Jonathan and Will can act as agents on your behalf to retrieve documents from local offices and get them notarized and apostilled, all without you having to come back to the U.S.

Quick Notarizations:

A notary can assist you with notarizing your documents within 24 hours.

Procedure

1. Use the contact form below to obtain a price estimate
2. Submit your documents and receive a full quotation and timeline
3. Our partners will manage the procedure of legalizing the documents
4. Once documents are apostilled, they will dispatch them by your preferred courier to any location worldwide.

E-Apostille

Based on The Hague regulations, the E-apostille carries equal weight and legitimacy as a physical apostille. This may suffice for certain documents, but it is best to confirm with the entity you are submitting them to. Contact them for assistance executing E-apostilles.

Remote FBI Background Checks

Criminal background reports from the FBI can also be challenging to obtain remotely. Our partners can help you execute an ink printing of your fingerprint card, and their liaison in the FBI can convert a physical fingerprint card to a digital print. They can then submit this from within the U.S. to the FBI. From the time you request an FBI check, you can get your report in around 24 hours – much faster than mailing it in physically.

Transcript of “How To Notarize and Apostille Documents From Anywhere”

LADISLAS MAURICE: Hello, everyone. Ladislas Maurice of thewanderinginvestor.com. Today, we’ll be discussing a very useful service that I came across, which is remote US notarizations and US apostilles. And this isn’t just a service for US people, but also for non-US people that need notarizations.

Jonathan and Will, we first met when I was just doing a viewing of my apartment, post-renovation, in Medellín, Colombia. You guys are my tenants, we were having a short chat. And I asked you guys, what do you guys do? And then you explained your service. And I thought, wow, this is exactly the sort of service that some of my clients need. And then I actually tried your service out to notarize some documents remotely, and it worked flawlessly.

How to get notary and Apostille services remotely

LADISLAS MAURICE: Can you, please, take us through the service that you offer for people?

JONATHAN: Obviously, one of the biggest challenges, especially when you’re living abroad, is getting documents notarized, apostilled from the US, and costly flights and time, obviously, poses a challenge. We provide mobile notary services in the United States, but can also use electronic notarizations for anybody in the US, outside the US, and non-US citizens. What’s great is we have a network of over 100,000 notaries in the country, and we can leverage the laws between different states, where some states might not allow notarization of a non-US citizen, but other states do. And so we can use that network and those laws to fit whatever need our customers have based on their situation.

LADISLAS MAURICE: For US people, you cover every single state, correct?

JONATHAN: Correct. That’s right.

LADISLAS MAURICE: Because one of the biggest challenges some of my US clients have is, when they go overseas, they need some document apostilled. And then when they check the process for their own state, often they have to go to some office, and then they’re flying around, and it’s complicated, and it varies from state to state, and they’re confused. But essentially, you take all the friction out of this process.

JONATHAN: That’s right. And like I was saying, we have that network of 100,000 notaries, and so we can also leverage the network to do the footwork for you. Whether that be running into those state offices, grabbing your documents, going to actually go and get them apostilled, that way, they can essentially act on your behalf and do that without you having to ever come to the United States.

WILL: Yeah, and I was just going to piggyback on what Jonathan was saying, is we are often getting calls from clients who were going to the consulate to get a notarization. Sometimes, that might be all the way across the country, or they’re actually purchasing a flight to come all the way back to United States, while still trying to figure out the process. The notarization and apostille process is not the easiest to figure out. Believe you me, we had to kind of bump our heads around to figure out as well. But we understand it, and so we can save people that trip from having to come back to United States.

How to get FBI background check remotely

LADISLAS MAURICE: And how do you operate specifically for FBI background checks? Because that’s often in a particularly problematic for US people, they feel that they need to go back to the US to get the FBI report and to then get it apostilled locally. What solution do you offer there?

JONATHAN: The FBI report is interesting. Normally, I think people are used to that fingerprint scanning machine. With those, those have to be done in the US, because the FBI doesn’t allow for information to be digitally transmitted from outside of the US into the US. And so, there are some cases where you could do the scan from outside the US, but then you’d have to get it printed on a fingerprint card and then mailed into the FBI.

An option that we provide is we actually help you through with the ink printing of your cards, if you’re outside the US. And we have a special person with the FBI who we can mail your prints to them. They convert it, that ink print, digitally into a digital print, and then submit it, from within the United States, to the FBI. And so, in that way, we’re able to get the FBI report in 24 hours from the time that we receive it, versus having to mail it into West Virginia’s FBI office, and it takes four to six weeks for them to give you an FBI report back.

LADISLAS MAURICE: This is amazing. Because I have American friends, and they were in situations where they needed an FBI background check and they couldn’t get it on time. It messed up their whole plans. It cost them thousands of dollars in lost flights, weeks of delays, and this and that, and you guys can essentially solve this for a few hundred dollars.

WILL: And what we’ve noticed is that the countries have become more and more strict over time. Countries that may have not required FBI background checks are now starting to require those FBI background checks. In addition, there were kind of workarounds, or, I guess, for lack of a better term, shortcuts that you could use back in the day when COVID was more prevalent. These countries are saying, “Hey, all those restrictions or all those things that we were allowing to happen before, we’re going to put an X on that. And that now things need to go the 100% correct way.”

It’s really important the fact that we have all these agents in all these different states, because we make sure that we do it the way in which the documents are supposed to be completed, which is through the state in which it originated. And we find that this change has caused a lot of problems for a lot of Americans abroad.

LADISLAS MAURICE: Absolutely. People move overseas, they need an apostilled or notarized, depending on the country, copy of their birth certificate, of their marriage certificate, of their even divorce certificate, sometimes, of accounting details, of whatever letter of confirmation of assets. It’s, when you go overseas, in 90% of cases, you will need a service like this.

The correct way to obtain an Apostille from abroad

JONATHAN: Yeah. And I think a common misconception that people have when we talk to them about the apostille is, a lot of people think, Oh, it’s just a signature and stamp. It’s essentially an international notarization. It’s, like, simplicity it is, but the thing is, we can get an apostille on pretty much anything, but that doesn’t mean that the recipient will accept it, because there are correct ways to do apostilles. You could have an apostille done and it’s not the correct process. And so, by the time you get it over to that international side, they’re like, “This isn’t what we wanted. You have to go do this this way.” And so, then you’ve just lost so much time and more money to try to do it like these other roundabout ways.

Essentially, what we’re doing is we’re trying to work with two different government entities, the US side, that has their own compliance and process, and then also, is it acceptable for your receiving country, making sure that it’s going to be able to be used there.

LADISLAS MAURICE: Yeah. And even for non-US people, it’s an interesting service. For example, I’m not a US person, I’m not American, but I travel around all the time. Right now, as we’re recording this, I’m in Mexico, and I had my brokerage account in Russia, asked for some certified documents. And I asked them if they were comfortable with certified documents from Mexico, and they said, “Yes, but then we need an official translation in Russia, blah, blah.” Just added this whole layer of complexity. Then they said, “Oh, but if the notarization is in English, we accept English.” I, literally, just contacted you guys, sent you the document, and within 24 hours, I had PDF copies of the notarization that I sent to Russia, and they’re fine with it.

JONATHAN: Perfect.

LADISLAS MAURICE: And if I ever needed the hard copy, if they asked for it, you guys can just DHL it directly. And if the Russians become annoying and they say, “Oh, we want an apostille,” you guys can then add an apostille on top of it. Even for non-US documents, it works.

JONATHAN: That’s right. It really is based on where the official is, who the government official is. And so, notaries are government officials, so are government officers. And for using a US notary, we would do the apostille notarization from the US. And the document can be in any language. We can even notarize documents that are not in English and apostille them.

LADISLAS MAURICE: Very useful. Obviously, you want to check with, like you said, the receiving party, if they’re fine with it. You’re not going to apostille a German birth certificate in the US. That just wouldn’t make any sense whatsoever. It’s really dependent on your particular situation, but, oftentimes, for banking, for brokerage accounts, for things like this, a US notarization works perfectly fine.

WILL: Copies of passports, copies of driver’s license.

JONATHAN: Yeah, we can do this. And even if it was a copy of a foreign passport, doesn’t even have to be a US passport, we can actually notarize and apostille those. Because all we’re doing is certifying a copy of it, that it’s a true copy, wherever that document is. It’s great. We enjoy having our customers call us and talk to us so that we can figure out what’s going on, because we can create creative solutions, again, leveraging laws between different states and seeing ways that could actually work for your situation, versus trying to figure it out.

How to get E-Apostille

LADISLAS MAURICE: Can you educate us with regards to e-apostilles? Because this is a new concept, few people have heard of it. We’re starting to see, when we go into embassies and the like, posters about e-apostilles, but no one quite understands how they work, and often, there’s a lot of government officials don’t quite accept them yet. Please, tell us about it.

JONATHAN: The e-apostille has actually been around since 2004. It’s been around for a long time. And so, the Hague Convention, which is that apostille convention who made the regulations for it, that’s when they started it. Certain countries have been doing it, like Spain has it, Colombia has been doing it, but the US was slower to adopt it. But now it’s, like, US is part of more in the forefront of getting them accepted.

We’ve been part of a pilot program, for the last couple years, on issuing, that you’re getting the e-apostilles, and also helping to educate the recipient and why it’s valid use. Based on the Hague’s regulations, it’s equal weight to a physical apostille. There is no one is better than the other. The only thing that somebody might not accept an e-apostille is that they’re rejecting the underlying document, not the apostille itself, because the apostille is the one certificate that goes on the original document. If your recipient does not want a digital signature on, like, a power of attorney, they said, “No, it has to be wet signed.” And then that case, that is a valid reason for them to reject it, since, let’s say, you did an online notarization, and then we put an e-apostille on it. Because e-apostille is for digital documents.

We’ve been working with e-apostilles, part of a pilot program for the last couple of years. An e-apostille is equal in weight to a physical apostille. The Hague doesn’t want there to be any difference between the two. And essentially, this is what an e-apostille looks like. It is a fully digital document. It is digitally certified. This is the original. This can be shared many times to whoever you need. You can’t really lose it, as long as you have the file. And there’s no international shipping needed, since the document is fully digital.

LADISLAS MAURICE: You cut out all the DHL, all the FedEx fees?

JONATHAN: Yeah, there would be no shipping.

LADISLAS MAURICE: A waste of time.

JONATHAN: And no risk of losing it, and you can send that to your recipient same day.

LADISLAS MAURICE: How do they verify it?

JONATHAN: There is a verification security measure here. Every e-apostille has that blue certified bar, and then they also have a verification on a website. You can go to the government entity who issued it, and it’ll come with a verification number. The state will have who actually signed this document, and all that matching information. You would match those two. If anything was differing, if there were different dates, that’s how you would know that it’s not the real one, somebody altered it or falsified it. But with these documents, they can’t be altered. And so, this is why I had to take a screenshot of the Adobe, because I couldn’t even redact the file.

LADISLAS MAURICE: Interesting. This is faster and more affordable?

JONATHAN: Correct.

How to contact Jonathan and Will for remote notarization and Apostille

LADISLAS MAURICE: Gentlemen, look, thank you very much for your time. There’s an affiliate link below in the description. You can get in touch with William and Jonathan. I mean, you guys just get back to people really quickly, right? What’s your target?

WILL: My sales team, the bare minimum, whenever somebody submits a form on our website, to give them a call back within five minutes, but we aim to give a call back within 60 seconds. You guys can call us out if it takes us any longer than that.

LADISLAS MAURICE: And that’s US working hours?

JONATHAN: It’s US working hours.

WILL: We’re open from 6am Pacific Standard Time to 10pm PST. And we’re also open on the weekends as well, from 9am to 9pm.

LADISLAS MAURICE: All right. I can speak for amazing service.

WILL: Thank you.

JONATHAN: I do want to mention, too, though, that for so Sundays, we are closing on Sundays. It’s for religious reasons, to have a day of Sabbath for our team. And being a Christian-centered business, that’s something we wanted to have.

LADISLAS MAURICE: All right, so there’s a link below. Jonathan, William, thank you very much.

WILL: All right, thank you.

JONATHAN: Thank you.

WILL: Thanks for having us.