Certificate of legitimization of signature for a foreign country

As it can be intuited, the acts of legitimization of signature for effect in a foreign country are an instrument that allows to authenticate the signature that appears in a document, so that before any person, it can be verified that such signature corresponds to a concrete person, but with the particularity that such signature is in a document whose effects will not be deployed in the national territory, but that will have application in a third foreign country.

Thus, logically, given the globalization process experienced in the 20th and 21st centuries, hundreds of thousands of nationals of other countries live or transit through our country, with respect to whom they maintain economic, personal and patrimonial relations, which must be duly attended to.

Likewise, there are many Spanish nationals who maintain personal, economic and patrimonial relationships with individuals and operators of other nationalities or jurisdictions.

In all these cases, it is evident that these people, in order to deal with these realities, will need to present documents, writings, declarations of will, allegations, appeals to administrations, etc., in those countries, while they are in Spain. 

In view of this, so that in such country or jurisdiction, these documents can be recognized as valid (i.e., that the signature on the document can be reliably associated to the person indicated as belonging), the acts of signature legitimation for effects in a foreign country will be very useful, since in such a case, it is a Notary Public, that is to say, a public official invested with the notarial public faith and whose functions are recognized in a similar way in most countries of the world, will legitimize and certify that such document has been signed by the person indicated, thus allowing the same to deploy all its effects in that state with total guarantee of legal certainty.

In practice, there can be a multitude of types of documents that are incorporated and legitimized through this notarial procedure, among which the following can be highlighted:

• Documents signed by foreigners with applications or allegations to be submitted to public administrations(such as an application for a building permit in Germany).
• Authorizations or delegations of powers for a third person to carry out transactions on behalf of that person in his or her country of origin.
• Certifications of corporate resolutions of the administrative bodies of foreign companies(such as the certificate of the resolution of a sole director of a Canadian company authorizing the purchase of a certain asset).
• Declarations of will that need to be incorporated into a judicial proceeding being followed abroad(such as a declaration of a person, addressed to the competent judicial body, in which he/she states that he/she wishes to provide relevant information to a certain court case).
  

The procedure for the granting of this type of certificate is very simple.

The interested party will go to the Notary's office with the document in question. After identifying himself before the Notary with his identity document, the Notary Public will proceed to examine the document in order to verify its legality, and if this is confirmed, it will be signed by the applicant, thus verifying that the signature corresponds to the person appearing.

After that, the Notary will verify:

• That the parties are aware of the contents of the document.
• And that they are aware that it is their intention that the effects of the same will only be produced outside Spain.
  

Once these formalities have been completed, the Notary Public will draw up the minutes, in which the original or photocopy of the document will be incorporated.

Indeed, the document may be written in any foreign language, but the legitimization of the signature will only be possible if the Notary knows the foreign language or, if necessary, the corresponding official translation is provided.