Confirmation That a Person Is Alive - The Life Certificate Foreign Pensions and Insurers Ask For

What the notary certifies

Certification of the fact that a person is alive is one of the acts of certifying facts that Georgian notarial law provides: the person appears before the notary in person, the notary establishes their identity from a valid passport or ID, and certifies that the person named, identified by the stated document, is alive and appeared before the notary at the stated date and time, with the notary's signature, seal and register number, the act being entered in the electronic register. The certificate proves the fact as at that date - it does not prove anything about the person's health, residence or entitlement, though funds often ask for a declaration of address or continued entitlement alongside, which the notary certifies as an authenticated signature on the declaration. The person must appear in person; the act cannot be done by power of attorney, by video without the notary's specific procedure, or on a relative's word, which is what makes it useful to the fund and what requires the home visit described below for those who cannot come.

Foreign pension and social security funds

The largest group of clients are pensioners receiving foreign pensions in Georgia: Georgians who worked abroad and returned, foreign nationals who retired to Georgia, and the spouses and survivors of both. German funds (the Deutsche Rentenversicherung's Lebensbescheinigung), Greek funds (the IKA and its successor's certificate of life), the Israeli National Insurance Institute, the Russian, Ukrainian, Kazakh, Armenian, Azerbaijani and Belarusian pension funds paying pensions abroad, the American Social Security Administration (which uses its own questionnaire), Italian, Spanish, French, Polish, Czech and other European funds, and private pension schemes all require periodic proof of life, usually annually and sometimes at other intervals, on their own form or as a free certificate; failure to return it stops the pension. We know the forms and the languages of the main funds, complete the fund's form where the notary can certify on it and attach the Georgian certification where the notary cannot, translate the certification into the fund's language with a notarized translation, apostille the act through the Ministry of Justice route where the fund requires legalized documents (many accept it without, and we check), and send the set to the fund by courier or, where the fund accepts it, by email.

Insurers, annuities and inheritance matters

Life insurers paying annuities and periodic benefits ask for proof of life on the same principle, as do funds paying disability and survivors' benefits, and some employers paying pensions abroad; the certificate is issued on the insurer's form or as a free certificate and treated like the pension case. In inheritance and family matters the act appears in a different role: a foreign court or notary administering an estate may need proof that an heir, a beneficiary or a person whose survival affects the distribution is alive; a lender or a counterparty under a life-contingent contract (a lifetime maintenance agreement, a life interest, a reverse mortgage) may need the same; and a missing-person or presumed-death proceeding abroad may be answered by a Georgian certificate that the person is alive and where. The certificate is apostilled and translated for these uses, and our legal translators render it in the terminology the foreign court or notary uses.

Home visits for those who cannot travel

Many of the people who need this certificate are elderly or ill, and Georgian notarial law allows the notary to perform acts outside the office where the person cannot attend; we arrange for the notary to visit the pensioner at home, in hospital or in a care facility, in Tbilisi and, by arrangement, elsewhere, with our interpreter where the pensioner does not speak Georgian and with the fund's form prepared, so that the certificate is issued at the bedside and the apostille and translation follow from the office. Relatives who look after a pensioner contact us with the fund's letter and the pensioner's document, and we schedule the visit within days; for annual renewals we keep the fund's details and remind the family before the deadline.

Foreign clients, language and the certificate's form

The act is available to anyone identified by a valid document; a foreign passport is translated and notarized for the notary's file beforehand, and our interpreter attends and is recorded where the person does not speak Georgian. The certification is written in Georgian, and the fund receives it with a notarized translation into its language; where the fund's own form is in its language and the notary completes it, the form itself serves, with the Georgian certification attached for the apostille where one is needed. The certificate is dated, and funds set the period within which it must reach them - typically within a month or two of issue - so we time the act to the fund's deadline and send it the same day.

What to bring, fees and timing

Bring your valid passport or Georgian ID and the fund's or insurer's letter or form, and, if a declaration of address or entitlement is required, the details for it; send the letter in advance on WhatsApp, Telegram or email and we prepare the form, the certification and the translation before the appointment, which takes minutes at Agmashenebeli 117, or schedule a home visit. Fees follow the official tariff for the certification of a fact; the fund's form, the translation, the apostille, the home visit and courier are quoted separately and in advance, and the set is sent to the fund the same day the act is done. For annual renewals we keep the file and repeat the act in the same form each year, on a reminder before the fund's deadline.

Frequently asked questions

Other notary services