Provincial and Territorial Vital Statistic Offices issue certain life event documents needed in a foreign country. These documents include Birth Certificate, Marriage Certificate, and Death Certificate.
These vital statistic certificates typically must proceed through a process referred to as authentication and legalization. The authentication and legalization process is the Canadian equivalent of an Apostille. The team at Capital Authentication specializes in Canadian document authentication and legalization. We can expertly handle your documents while completing them timely and in a cost-effective manner.
While an individual can manage this process independently, to save time, one should consider hiring an expert in this field.
Excellent service. Prompt, quick and answered my queries with full detail. Also the best price around! I highly recommend using their services.
– Robyn
Common Vital Statistic Certificate Questions
Our office is an expert in the field of Canadian document authentication and legalization. We assist individuals, companies, law firms in navigating the requirements of the authentication section of Global Affairs Canada and the various Embassies and Consulates. We handle all aspects of this process while keeping you informed as the documentation is processed.
The cost for authenticating and legalizing your vital statistics certificate comes down to the speed of service and the legalization fees charged by the particular Embassy or Consulate.
We would welcome the opportunity to discuss your unique situation while offering a detailed breakdown of fees.
To make it easier to understand, we have grouped the authentication and legalization fees. Our office offers four different processing options depending upon urgency. More importantly, we employ a system that we refer to as “The Completion Time Method”. When suggesting prices, we balance the total time expected to take to have the document(s) authenticated by Global Affairs and then legalized by a particular Embassy or Consular Office. Employing our method translates into lower fees for our customers.
Our office offers a number of different payment options such as money order, e-transfer, direct payment into our account, credit card (visa or mastercard). If you have any questions about payment methods, please feel free to reach out to our office either by e-mail or telephone as we will happily discuss payment options.
We suggest using a national courier such as FedEx, Purolator, DHL or Canada Post “Xpresspost”. Each of these courier options offers a form of tracking and considering that the documents are sensitive in nature the ability to track your item is strongly recommended.
Once the authentication and legalization services have been completed, our clients can provide a prepaid return courier to our office. If however it is more convenient, our office will happily arrange for the return courier either to our client directly or to an authorized third party of their choosing.
At Capital Authentication we do not like to return documents to a client using regular lettermail. Regular lettermail is not encouraged given the sensitive nature of the documents. However, where a client has specifically requests this method of return, we will comply.
This is a very good question and it really depends upon where one intends to use the document. As long as the document is a Canadian document, Global Affairs Canada will generally authenticate either an original document or a notarized copy of the document. If using a notarized document, the notary must be a Canadian notary. The more important question to ask is whether the diplomatic mission in question will accept notarized documents instead of original documents. It is always best to consult the diplomatic mission to determine if original documents and/or notarized documents can be used. There are some diplomatic missions that will only accept original documents.
Should a problem arise with the processing of your documents due to a change in policy or requirements by Global Affairs Canada or at a particular diplomatic mission our office will be in contact with our clients immediately, by e-mail and/or telephone, so as to identify the problem and determine the best possible solution.
There are many instances when it is more convenient for a client to have documents sent directly to our office as opposed to their receiving them first. For example, government issued documents such as birth certificates can be sent directly to us. We can receive them and start compiling a client dossier with the authentication and legalization component to commence once we have all of the documents.
