Certified copy

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A certified copy is a photocopy of a filed document, legal or other, in its entirety (everything within a staple) that is sworn to be a true copy by a court clerk or solicitor. If the staple is removed then the copy loses its certified status.

As part of "know your customer" banking regulations most financial institutions now require a certified copy of a passport when new accounts are opened. This would normally entail a copy of the pages containing one's name, photograph, passport number and date of birth.

[edit] Copy Certification by U.S. Notaries

Some states in the United States permit notaries public to certify copies; the laws or officials who regulate notaries should be consulted for details. The U.S. State Department in 2005 compiled a table summarizing the state laws and regulations.^[1]In the table below, notes from the State Department table have been omitted for states that do not authorize notaries to certify copies.

U.S. State	Certification of True Copies Permitted (YES/NO)	Notes
Alabama	Yes	Only register pages
Alaska	No
American Samoa
Arizona	Yes
Arkansas	Yes
California	Yes	Only powers of attorney and notary journal pages.
Colorado	Yes	Only with signed written request stating certified copy not available from the officer of any recorder of public documents or other custodian of documents in the state.
Connecticut	No
Delaware	Yes
District of Columbia	Yes
Florida	Yes	Only with supervised photocopying. A notary may supervise the making of a photocopy of an original document and attest to the trueness of the copy. F.S.A. § 117.05(15). A notary cannot attest to the trueness of a photocopy; only photocopies of original documents may be attested as to trueness F.S.A. §117.05(15)(a). A notary cannot attest to the trueness of a photocopy of a public record if a copy can be made by another public official. F.S.A. §117.05(15)a
Georgia	Yes	Only with supervised photocopying.
Guam
Hawaii	Yes	Only protests and notary journal pages
Idaho	Yes
Illinois	No
Indiana	No
Iowa	Yes
Kansas	Yes
Kentucky	Yes	Only protests
Lousiana	No
Maine	No
Maryland	YES	Only register pages
Massachusetts	No
Michigan	No
Minnesota	Yes
Mississippi	No
Missouri	Yes
Montana	Yes	Only records isued or filed on the job.
Nebraska	No
Nevada	Yes
New Hampshire	No
New Jersey	No
New Mexico	Yes
New York	No
North Carolina	No
Northern Mariana Islands
Ohio	No
Oklahoma	Yes
Oregon	Yes	Notaries are not permitted to certify copies of public documents, especially vital statistics. There is a regulation of the Health Records Division that specifically prohibits copying their records. The prohibition is not in the notary law, but in the law of the custodian of records. Oregon would allow an affidavit attesting to a true copy by the bearer, but the notary should encourage the bearer to get the real certified copy from the custodian of record.
Pennsylvania	Yes
Puerto Rico
Rhode Island	No
South Carolina	No
South Dakota	No
Tennessee	No
Texas		A notary may not notarize a certified true copy of a recordable document. Birth certificates and marriage licenses are recordable documents. A recordable document is one that is recorded with some type of entity whether it be the Secretary of State's Office, a court of law, a county clerk, or the Bureau of Vital Statistics. Certified copies may be obtained by contacting such entities. A non-recordable document is one that has not been nor will ever be recorded with any type of entity. For instance, a letter is not recorded with anyone but there are times the sender of the letter would like to obtain a certified copy of that letter for his or her file.
Utah	Yes	Only if custodian of original appears.
Vermont	Yes
Virgin Islands
Virginia	Yes
Washington	Yes
West Virginia	Yes
Wisconsin	Yes
Wyoming	No

Notaries in many states keep journals of all their notarial acts. The table shows that in some states notaries may make certified copies of their journals but may not make any other kind of certified copies.