What a Notary Public Can and Cannot Do in Australia

Table of contents

Notaries are often approached to do things outside their role, and equally often not approached for things squarely within it. This sets out the boundary.

What a notary can do

Certify true copies. Sight an original and attest that a copy is complete and accurate. The most frequent request, and the basis of most overseas document chains.

Witness and attest signatures. Observe a signature, verify the signatory's identity, and certify that it was made in their presence.

Administer oaths and affirmations. For affidavits and sworn statements, including for foreign proceedings.

Attest execution of deeds and powers of attorney, including for company signatories where authority is established.

Note and protest bills of exchange. Archaic-sounding and rarely needed, but still part of the office and still occasionally required in trade finance.

Prepare notarial certificates in the form a destination country requires, including bilingual certificates.

Verify and attest translations, by attesting a translator's declaration and binding the translation to the original.

Certify corporate documents — that a company exists, that a person holds office, that a resolution was passed — on sighting proper evidence.

What a notary cannot do

Certify that the contents of a document are true. A notary attests to the copy, the signature, or the oath. Not to the underlying facts. A notarised statutory declaration containing a lie is a notarised lie.

Notarise a document they have an interest in. A notary cannot act where they or their family benefit. This is a hard rule and a notary who breaches it risks their appointment.

Act without sighting the original. For a true copy, the original must be produced. No amount of urgency changes this.

Notarise a signature made outside their presence. A pre-signed document must be re-executed.

Issue an apostille. Only DFAT. A notary whose site implies otherwise is either being loose with language or should not be used.

Give legal advice about foreign law, unless qualified in that jurisdiction. An Australian notary can tell you what the notarial act does; they cannot tell you whether your Italian property contract is sound under Italian law.

Act where they cannot communicate with you. If you do not share a language, an independent interpreter is required — not a relative, and not the person who arranged the appointment.

Act where capacity or free will is in doubt. A notary who suspects pressure or incapacity should decline, and a good one will.

Why refusal is sometimes the right outcome

A refused notarisation is frustrating in the moment. But the notarial register is a permanent record, and notarial acts are relied on internationally precisely because notaries refuse when something is wrong. A notary who would notarise anything for a fee produces documents worth nothing.

If you are refused, ask why. Often the issue is fixable — the right identification, an independent interpreter, a board resolution, the original rather than a copy.

How notaries are appointed

In Australia, notaries are appointed under the law of their state or territory (in most, by the Supreme Court; in Queensland, by the Archbishop of Canterbury's Court of Faculties). In most jurisdictions an applicant must be a practising solicitor of some years' standing, complete prescribed study, and satisfy the Court of fitness. Once appointed a notary must lodge specimen signature and seal with DFAT — which is what makes apostilles possible.

This is why Australian notarial acts carry weight abroad, and why the role is not comparable to a notary in the United States, where the office is typically held by lay people.