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Power of Attorney (POA) is a very powerful document, most notably holding all the necessary legal information on real estate for one or more parties or owners.

Most people go for power of attorneys in order to get free from the hassle of dealing with all the legalization by nominating someone to act as their attorney-in-fact and make all the financial decisions listed in the POA for them. However, the going gets tough when you need to revise/change/implement any legal decisions in a POA in another country. That is where you need an Apostille for Power of Attorney.

Getting an Apostille for a Power of Attorney (POA)

By getting an Apostille for a power of attorney, you will eliminate the hassle of having to travel together with your POA every time you need it in a foreign country and need legalization or authentication. For instance, if you’re a national of Mexico and need to donate some of your real estate to your grandson, you can choose to assign a trustable relative, close friend, colleague etc to act as the Power of Attorney to change the deed while you’re still in the United States of America.

In order to Apostille a Power of Attorney (POA), you must first notarize the POA by going into a local notary office. Then, you will need to mail in the original notarized copy to an Apostille Office Near You for processing. However, please note that not all notaries are considered legal, so you must make sure the notary you are going to is commissioned and uses proper notarial wording for their State.

Another important thing to consider is that not any Secretary of State is able to authenticate documents notarized in any other states. In fact, only the state in which the original documents were notarized are able to authenticate the documents. For instance, if your POA was assigned in California, then only the Secretary of State in California is able to authenticate those documents. The same goes for all other states. Also, a few states may require a document to be authenticated by a County Clerk – these include Maryland, New York, Kentucky, Hawaii and Tennessee.

We recommend that your POA be prepared by a professional from the Country requesting it possibly in all official languages. For instance, if the Country of Mexico has requested a signed and notarized document for Power of Attorney, make sure that an attorney or paralegal in Mexico prepare your document both in Spanish and English. This is very important to consider since many US states do not Apostille a document issued in a foreign language. In order to avoid this, we recommend that your documents be issued in both languages.

Once notarized, you can then mail in the document to our Apostille Office for processing.

Obtaining an Apostille on a single status affidavit can be a very complex and tiresome process. Taking matters into your own hand or trusting untrained, non-professionals could not only result in a rejection of your paperwork but will also cost you lost money and precious time.

You can seek counsel of our Apostille services to get Apostille for Power of Attorney near you.

Note that only the original signed and notarized POA can receive the Apostille from the State once it is processed.

DOWNLOAD THE APOSTILLE FORM HERE