Very few of you will know what this is. Those of you who are lawyers will know very well. But apparently I need one which may or may not be painful but will certainly cost some money.
We all know about document verification of whatever sort be they official to Government or business (or both) but what happens when you need to verify a document issued in one country to officials of another country? Enter the Hague Convention.
The Hague Convention, among other things, lays down the details of what constitutes a lawyer (or in this case) the specifics of a notary. All nations signed up the Hague Convention now know what a notary is for legal purposes. Sending a document abroad for whatever reason requires it to be notarized and an Apostille is a single page document issued by a Government Office in your country which states that the signature on the document verifying it to be a true document is actually a registered notary.
And with that ladies and gentlemen Amazon can pay me all my royalties and only deduct 0.5% instead of 30% because I have proven I am not a US citizen and only subject to tax as laid down in Treaty agreements between the UK and USA.
Who knew?
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apostil, -ille, n.
(əˈpɒstɪl) Also 7 -style, -stle.
[a. Fr. apostille, of uncert. origin: see postil.
Diez and Littré say from à to + postille; but Littré’s first quotation suggests a connexion with OF. pa. pple. apost:—L. apposit-um, placed, added, annexed to. Fr. perhaps confused l’apostille, la postille.]
A marginal note, comment, or annotation.
1527 State Papers Hen. VIII, I. 225 Copies of the same, with suche apostillis‥in the mergentes, as in reding of them came unto my mynde. 1683 Temple Mem. Wks. 1731 I. 423 The second Article they consented to, with an Apostyle of their own upon it. 1858 Motley Dutch Rep. ii. 128 The world, in his [Philip’s] opinion, was to move upon protocols and apostilles. 1860 ― Netherl. (1868) II. xvii. 303 He sat at his table, scrawling his apostilles.