We are able to make certified copies of your documents if you post the originals to us.
Alternatively, you will need to take your original documents to a person who is authorised to make certified copies. Please ensure that the front of each page of the document is certified.
- IN AUSTRALIA: documents can be certified by anyone before whom a statutory declaration may be made under the Statutory Declarations Act 1959 i.e. a lawyer, Justice of the Peace, police officer, pharmacist or other similarly authorised official.
- OUTSIDE AUSTRALIA: documents can be certified by a Notary Public or a person who is the equivalent of a Justice of the Peace or Commissioner for Declarations in that country.
A statutory declaration is a formal written statement that you declare to be true in the presence of a suitably authorised witness. Please see above for further details regarding who can witness a statutory declaration, either in Australia or overseas.
If required, we can help you to prepare your statutory declaration regarding your relationship.
You must apply for a police clearance for EACH country in which you have lived for a TOTAL of 12 months or more during the last 10 years.
Each police clearance must be issued within the last 12 months. Please note that you must provide the original police clearances, not certified copies.
- Example 1
You have lived in Australia for 5 years. During the 5 years before that, you lived in India.
You will need to provide original, recent police clearances for both Australia AND India. - Example 2
You have lived in Australia for 3 years. Before you arrived in Australia, you lived in New Zealand for 9 months. Prior to this you lived in Canada for 2 years and in the United Kingdom for 5 years.
You will need to provide police clearances for Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom. You do not need to provide a police clearance for New Zealand because you lived there for a total of less than 12 months during the last 10 years.
Note: In the above example, if you had lived in New Zealand for at least 3 months at another point in time during the last 10 years, then you would need to provide a police clearance for NZ as well. This is because you would have lived in New Zealand for 12 months in total.
We are able to apply for your Australian police clearance (which is called the National Police Certificate, and is issued by the Australian Federal Police, or AFP) on your behalf. If you would like to use our services in this respect, please let us know as soon as possible.
If you wish us to apply for a National Police Certificate on your behalf, you must supply us with additional evidence of your identity and current address i.e. your Australian driver’s licence OR at least two of the following documents: recent utility bill, tax assessment notice, bank statement, debit or credit card, or Medicare card.
Alternatively, if you choose to apply for this clearance yourself, we can supply you with full details on how to apply for the correct overseas police clearances, as each country has different requirements. These can include specific application forms, supporting documents, fees and directions on where the application should be lodged. We recommend that you ask the relevant overseas issuing authorities to send your original police clearances directly to our postal address, to avoid double handling of your documents.