Unfortunately, quite often people lose documents, including those with apostille. Therefore, customers regularly contact us with the question, what should they do in this case?
The approach depends on the location and circumstances of the document loss. It is easiest if it is lost on the territory of the issuing country, it is a little more difficult if it is abroad, especially if you do not have the opportunity to collect it. But don't worry, this is almost always a solvable problem.
The circumstances of the loss also play a role. In most countries, to obtain a new document that has simply been lost, it is sufficient to contact the authority that issued it. If the document is stolen, in some states you may have to wait for the results of an official investigation and only then start obtaining it.
As a rule, the persons to whom it was issued, as well as their legal representatives or guardians, can obtain the document on the basis of a special request. The powers of a legal representative are usually confirmed by a notarized power of attorney. There are cases when documents were issued a long time ago, and the state in which they were received no longer exists (like the USSR, for example). In this case, each situation must be analyzed individually. Often the registry office (or a similar body in another country) has the right to issue a new document itself, but sometimes such cases are settled in court.
It should be noted right away that none of this applies to passports and other identification documents. They can mostly only be restored via the embassy. But we will not dwell on this topic now, since the topic of our article is documents that can be certified with the apostille, and passports are not one of them.
Let's imagine the most common situation. You are abroad and have lost a document with an apostille there. For some reason you personally can't get involved with a duplication or don't want to spend time on it. In this case, it is most convenient for you to use our document and apostille recovery services.
To do this, you must send us an official power of attorney, a copy of your identity document and information about the place and circumstances in which the document was received. If there is a specific procedure in that state from which it must be retrieved, we will point this out to you separately. But in most of these situations, what has been listed will suffice.
After receiving a duplicate copy of this document, our staff will arrange for its apostille. When the certified document arrives in your country of residence, you can use it without restriction. Such a duplicate copy corresponds in all respects to the document you originally had and is considered to be the original.
