This document is a legal contract between you (the Client) and apostilleonline.org, regarding the legalisation services that apostilleonline.org provides or will provide to you. These terms and conditions override any other communications, proposals, contracts, marketing materials, or agreements that may conflict with them. By sending us your source materials (as defined below), you agree to all these terms and conditions.
The headings in this document are only for your convenience and do not affect the meaning of the terms and conditions.
Unless the context requires otherwise, words that refer to one gender include all other genders and words that refer to the singular include the plural and vice versa.
Service
We act as your agent. We will receive your document(s) in our office, then take them to, and collect them from, the Legalisation Office in person.
We will complete all straightforward applications within 4-5 working days from the time the documents arrive at our office.
By straightforward application, we mean documents that are ready for legalisation. This means they can be legalised as they are, or we can get the signature of a solicitor or notary public on your behalf.
If you have asked us to get solicitor or notary public authentication before legalisation, we will still complete the service within 4-5 working days. However, sometimes a solicitor or notary public may not be available, which may cause a delay. We will let you know as soon as possible if this happens.
If any documents we receive are not suitable for legalisation, we will contact you as soon as possible and explain why the document cannot be legalised, and what you need to do to get the document legalised, if possible.
Delays can happen for many reasons, such as:
the Legalisation Office does not have the signature specimen of the solicitor or notary public who signed your document. The Legalisation Office will try to contact the solicitor or notary public to get their signature specimen, but if they do not respond quickly enough, it will delay the legalisation process. This also applies to signatures of other public officials, such as Registrars, doctors and anyone else who is authorised to sign documents for this purpose.
the document has not been certified according to the Legalisation Office requirements.
you have sent us copies of GRO documents that are not authorised.
the Notary Public has not sealed the document.
you have sent us a copy of a criminal record certificate – only originals are accepted.
a declaration or statement mentions an attachment, but the attachment is missing.
This is not a complete list of all the possible reasons why the Legalisation Office may refuse to legalise documents.
Fees
You can find our current fees on our website.
Our fees include VAT, unless we say otherwise.
Payment Terms
You need to pay us in advance for all apostille orders.
We accept payment by:
Credit/Debit card online
Bank Transfer
Refunds
If we cannot legalise your documents for any reason, we will only refund the apostille fee. You will still have to pay our service fee.
Delivery
We send all legalised documents back to you by first class recorded mail. This gives you proof of posting, signature on delivery and online confirmation of delivery. You cannot track your document. Most documents arrive the next day, but this is not guaranteed and it may take longer.
We also offer other delivery services for extra costs:
Special Delivery: proof of posting, guaranteed delivery next day by 1pm, guaranteed Saturday delivery for a small extra charge, online tracking and electronic proof of delivery.
Domestic Courier: next working day, online tracking and electronic proof of delivery. Delivery time is not guaranteed.
International recorded mail: proof of posting, secure delivery of an item up to 2kg, a signature taken by recipient. No tracking available.
We are not responsible for any delays after we have given your document to the postal services, as this is beyond our control. We consider our service completed when we have given your documents to the postal services/courier company.
Data Protection
We, apostilleonline.org, need to collect some personal data from you to provide legalisation services. This includes contacting you if we have any questions and delivering legalised documents to you. We make sure that the information we collect and use is appropriate for this purpose, and does not invade your privacy.
If you do not give us the necessary personal information when you order, apostilleonline.org may not be able to provide some or all of the Services.
We do not need to share your name and contact details with any third parties, but the documents you send us for legalisation may have such information. We may share documents for legalisation with solicitors, notary public, the Legalisation Office (part of the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office – FCO), consulate and embassies. We will only share your document with these third parties when it is strictly necessary, and it depends on what type of document it is and which country you will submit the legalised document to.
Any third parties that we may share your data with must keep your details safe, and only use them to provide the service they do for you on our behalf. Note that some consulates and embassies are not part of the EEA and may not follow the GDPR Data Protection law.
apostilleonline.org will process (collect, store and use) the information you give us in a way that is compatible with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). We will try to keep your information accurate and up to date, and not keep it for longer than we need to. apostilleonline.org must keep some information according to the law, such as information needed for income tax and audit purposes.
You can ask apostilleonline.org to confirm what information we have about you and how we process it.
Contact details of the Data Protection Manager:
The DPO Office
Via email:
[email protected]
Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Tel: 0303 123 1113
We last updated this document on 08/01/2024
