Powers of attorney are the highest-volume apostille category in Florida and the one that fails most often, because everything that can go wrong happens before the document reaches the counter. The state is not checking the contents. It is checking the notary — the commission number, the name, the expiration date and the wording of the notarial statement.

What the Division actually verifies

A power of attorney is apostilled on the strength of the Florida notary’s signature, not the document’s substance. The Division compares the notary’s commission number, name and expiration date against the state notary database, and it requires a full notarial statement — venue, date, the means of identification, the acknowledgment or jurat language, the notary’s original signature, and the stamp and seal. The statement must be in English even when the document itself is not.

Photocopies are refused. So is a document where the notarial wording is incomplete, where the notary’s printed name does not match the commission, where the commission had expired on the date of signing, or where the seal is faint enough to be unreadable. Any one of those sends the package back, and the client loses the shipping time in both directions.

Drafting notes that prevent rejections abroad

Florida will apostille a technically correct document that the receiving country then refuses, which is a more expensive failure than a counter rejection because it surfaces weeks later. A few recurring causes:

• Bilingual documents. Many civil law countries want the Spanish, Portuguese or Italian text alongside the English. The notarial statement still has to be in English. A side-by-side format usually satisfies both.
• Identifying details. Consulates and foreign registries commonly require passport or national ID numbers for both the grantor and the attorney-in-fact, and a specific description of the powers granted. A general “all matters” power is frequently rejected in Latin America and Italy.
• Witnesses. Some countries expect two witnesses in addition to the notary. Florida does not require them for the apostille, but adding them costs nothing and prevents a rejection abroad.
• Property transactions. Foreign land registries often demand the exact legal description of the property and the registry reference. Get that from the receiving lawyer before signing, not after.

We review against these before filing, but the receiving attorney or registry abroad is the authority on the content — ask them for their template if one exists.

Affidavits and other notarized documents

The same rules govern single status affidavits, travel consent letters for minors, corporate resolutions, authorization letters, declarations of support and any other document made official by a Florida notary’s signature. All are $10 and all stand or fall on the notarial statement. What a notary cannot do is attest a copy of a public record — birth certificates, marriage certificates, court filings, transcripts held by public schools — so an affidavit attaching a notarized photocopy of a vital record will fail on that attachment.

How the filing works

1. Send us the draft, or have it drawn by the receiving lawyer abroad. We check the notarial wording and flag content issues before signing.
2. Sign before a Florida notary — in person, or online with our Florida remote online notary.
3. We present the original at the Division of Corporations in Tallahassee in person with the request form and payment.
4. Certified translation runs in parallel where the destination requires it, with the translator kept separate from the notary.
5. The apostilled original is couriered to you or directly to your representative abroad.