Does anyone know which is the best way to get a UK death certificate apostilled? There seem to be a number of companies offering the service so no idea where to start. Any advice welcome

Could the undertaker in the UK provide you with an international certificate. I know that here in Spain the provide international ones to cover people so would have thought that it was possible in the UK too.

Rosemary

I am not sure but for legal purposes it still needs to be apostilled and I doubt an international certificate does that if it is simply issued by an undertaker.
( I have a feeling EU countries don't need to have everything apostilled)

I thought that the international death certificate did not need to be apostilled as it is already in several languages.

As you said there are a lot of companies offering the service on the internet. Perhaps someone could help you find a local service if you provide an area.

Rosemary

​​​​​I think you are right but that is alright if you are a EU country. Now UK has left things need the Hague apostille for all official documents. The thing is : why do you need a company to do it when I assume you can just send documents straight to the legislation department in UK.? What is the difference?

Sorry I forgot that when I had all of the usual hassle to deal with that it was pre Brexit.

Hopefully someone will be able to provide you with some helpful answers.

Rosemary

https://www.gov.uk/get-document-legalised

This may help you

Thank you.

They will go around to the FCO with the certificate you (or someone else in the UK) sends them or asks them to retrieve if it's a BMD, get it done on your behalf with the FCO's same day service, then courier the document to whatever address you need, which will arrive in a day or so.

Perhaps of more use to people outside the UK then people in the UK. I used one such company during the pandemic, it was useful.

Ok. So basically it probably is slightly faster than getting the legalisation office to do it. However it looks like at £82 per document to be twice as much( £45) as the legislation office charge and other than speed you still have to post documents ( I don't have the digital signature for online).

I needed a replacement full birth certificate that was apostilled from the UK and arranged for the legalisation office to do that then send it to where I was in Germany.
It went smoothly from their side but there was a hiccup with DHL which took several days to sort out because they said they hadn't been given it, not recorded in their system, but the legalisation office said they had a record of it being passed to them.
I was passed from pillar to post with both denying they had it.

I faced the ridiculous situation where I told both of them to talk to each other to get it sorted and both said they 'weren't allowed to' due to data protection laws. Rubbish. I offered to each to send them a signed email giving them authority on my behalf to make enquiries, both said it wouldn't do but couldn't offer up an idea of what would.
I believed the legalisation office had handed it on and DHL had lost it (hopefully temporarily) so I compiled a list of contact email addresses of any person in any authority in the UK and Germany and shot gunned them all with the short and sweet version of my complaint and the stupidity of the situation.
Influential or not, no idea, but a day and a half later the letter was found and on it's way.