Certified Copy and Attested Photocopy Notary in Kendall, FL

Most people who call us asking for a certified copy are asking for something a Florida notary is not allowed to produce, and the sooner that is on the table, the less time and money the call costs. Florida notaries do not issue certified copies. What we can make, under Florida Statute 117.05, is an attested photocopy — and only of a document that is not recordable in the public records and cannot be obtained from a public office.

That single sentence rules out most of what people bring us. If a government agency somewhere holds the original and will sell you a copy, the notary is out of the picture and you need to go to that agency. If the document exists only in your hands and no public office has it, an attested photocopy is available and is often exactly what the requesting party wants.

A certified copy is issued by the custodian of the original record: a county clerk, a court, a vital records bureau, a university registrar. It carries that office's seal and it is the gold standard because the issuing body is vouching for its own record.

An attested photocopy is made by a notary who watches the copy come off the original, compares the two, and signs a certificate stating that the copy is a true and correct reproduction of a document presented as an original. The notary is vouching for the act of copying, not for the authenticity of the underlying document.

A notarized copy, in the loose sense people usually mean, is neither of those — it is typically a copy accompanied by an affidavit in which the document's owner swears the copy is true, and the notary notarizes that person's signature. That third route is legal in Florida for almost any document and is the workaround when an attested photocopy is off the table.

Birth certificates, death certificates and marriage certificates are the biggest group. All three are held by the Florida Bureau of Vital Statistics or the county that recorded them, which means a notary is prohibited from attesting a photocopy no matter how urgent the need. Order a certified copy from the issuing office.

Recorded deeds, court judgments, divorce decrees, probate orders, recorded liens and anything else filed with a clerk fall into the same category, because the clerk will produce a certified copy on request. Documents already recorded in the official records of Miami-Dade County are obtainable directly from the Clerk of the Circuit Court.

US passports belong here too, and this is where the internet gives people bad information. A US passport is issued by the Department of State and copies of passport records can be requested from that agency, so a Florida notary should not be attesting a photocopy of one. If a foreign consulate, bank or immigration attorney tells you they need a certified passport copy, the workable answer is almost always a document custodian affidavit or a copy certified by the issuing authority, not a notary stamp on a photocopy.

This is the route that solves most of the problems the rule above creates. Instead of the notary attesting the copy, the person who holds the document signs a sworn statement that the attached copy is a true, correct and complete reproduction of the original in their possession. The notary then notarizes that signature, which is an ordinary jurat and is permitted regardless of what the document is.

It is widely accepted by banks, foreign consulates, universities and employers, and it shifts the sworn responsibility to the person who actually knows the document is genuine. We bring the affidavit wording to the appointment. You read it, you swear to it, you sign it in front of us, and the copy travels attached to it.

Florida birth and death certificates come from the Florida Department of Health's Bureau of Vital Statistics, and the Miami-Dade County Health Department issues them locally. Marriage certificates come from the clerk of the county where the license was issued. Recorded deeds, judgments, divorce decrees and probate documents come from the Miami-Dade Clerk of the Circuit Court.

School and university records come from the registrar, not from a notary. Federal records — naturalization certificates, immigration documents, IRS transcripts, Social Security records — come from the issuing federal agency, and copying a naturalization certificate for official use is specifically restricted. We will tell you which office to call rather than take a fee for a copy that will be rejected.

The category is narrower than people expect but it is not empty. Diplomas and certificates issued to you personally, contracts and agreements between private parties, personal letters, corporate records held by your own company, an original power of attorney you had drafted, a personal will in your possession, receipts, medical records you hold rather than the provider, and identification documents that no US public office maintains.

The test to apply before you call is simple: could you walk into some government office and buy a copy of this? If yes, go there. If no, and you are holding the only original, a notary can attest a photocopy of it.

This comes up constantly with families in Kendall sending credentials abroad or applying to programs overseas. A diploma is generally attestable, because the university's registrar issues transcripts but the physical diploma in your hands is yours and is not held as a public record. A transcript is a different matter — the registrar produces it, and most institutions and foreign ministries want it sealed by the school anyway.

If the destination is a foreign country, the copy usually needs more than a notary. Documents going to a Hague Convention country require an apostille from the Florida Department of State, and the state will only apostille a document bearing a Florida notary's seal or an eligible official's signature. Get the order of operations right or the package comes back.

This is the most common reason a Kendall client needs an attested photocopy at all: something is being sent to Spain, Colombia, Venezuela, Argentina, Italy or Brazil, and the receiving institution wants a certified copy. The chain matters. For vital records, the apostille attaches to a certified copy from the state, never to a notarized photocopy. For private documents, the apostille attaches to the notary's certificate.

Tell us the destination country and the receiving institution at booking. A consulate in Miami often has requirements that differ from the general Hague procedure, and non-Hague countries require full embassy legalization rather than an apostille. Working that out before we make the copy is the whole job.

You present the original. We examine it, confirm it is an original rather than an existing copy, and confirm it falls inside what Florida permits. We make the photocopy ourselves, or supervise it being made, because the statute requires the notary to have made or supervised the copy. We compare the copy to the original page by page, complete the attestation certificate, seal it, and record the act in our journal.

The original never leaves your hands for longer than the copying takes, and it never leaves the room. If the copy is going into an envelope for a consulate, we will attach the certificate the way that consulate expects rather than stapling it to the back and hoping.

Florida sets the maximum notarial fee at ten dollars per act, and an attested photocopy is one act per document. Beyond that there is a delivery fee based on your location, calculated from the distance we drive from Kendall to reach you, quoted as one number before we accept the appointment.

If your document turns out not to qualify, we will tell you on the phone before anyone drives anywhere. That conversation is free, and it is a better outcome than a stamp on a page that a consulate hands back to you.

Call or text with what the document is, who is asking for the copy and why. Those three facts determine whether you need an attested photocopy, a document custodian affidavit, or a certified copy from an agency we can point you to.

We work 9 AM to 7 PM, seven days a week, across Kendall and Miami-Dade, and we will not take an appointment for a copy Florida does not allow us to make.