Copy or Extract from the Notarial Archive - When the Original Is Lost, the Archive Still Has It

The archive, and what it contains

Under the Law on Notaries, a notary keeps the originals of the acts they certify - or, for acts such as signature authentications and copy certifications, the register entries and the copies the procedures require - in the notary's archive for the periods the law sets, most of them permanently, together with the electronic register of notarial acts that records every act by number, date, type and parties; when a notary ceases practice, the archive passes to the Notary Chamber of Georgia or to a notary the Chamber designates, and the archives of the state notarial offices of the Soviet period and the 1990s are held by the Chamber's archive. The archive is therefore complete back for decades, and an act made in Tbilisi in 1985, 2003 or last year can be found from its register number, or from the parties' names and the approximate date where the number is unknown, and re-issued. Our partner notary's own archive holds every act made at our office, which is why a translation, a power of attorney or a contract made with us is re-issued the same day on request.

What is issued: duplicate, certified copy or extract

Three forms are available depending on the act and the need. A duplicate of a notarial act - typically of a power of attorney, a contract, a will after the testator's death, a certificate of inheritance - is a re-issue of the act from the archive, certified by the notary as a duplicate with a note of the issue, and it has the legal force of the original for every purpose, so that a representative whose power was lost acts on the duplicate and a party to a contract enforces on it. A certified copy of an act is issued where the original remains in force in the hands of a party and another entitled person needs a copy with the notary's certification of its accuracy. An extract is issued where only part of an act is needed or may be disclosed - the operative part of a contract without its confidential annexes, a will's disposition concerning one legatee, the entry from the register confirming that an act was made on a date. The notary issues the form the requester is entitled to and the receiving authority requires, and we advise which.

Who may request

Notarial acts are confidential, and the archive is opened only to those entitled: the parties to the act and their successors, the persons in whose favor the act was made (the representative under a power of attorney, the beneficiary of a consent, the heirs under a will after the testator's death), their representatives under a power of attorney that covers the request, and courts, prosecutors, enforcement officers and other authorities within their powers; a will is disclosed to no one during the testator's life except the testator. The requester proves their identity and their entitlement - a party by their document and the act's details, an heir by the death certificate and their relationship, a representative by their power of attorney - and, for foreigners, the documents are translated and the interpreter attends. We prepare the request with the proof of entitlement, and where the requester is abroad we act under a power of attorney and send the duplicate by courier.

Finding old acts and acts of other notaries

An act made at another notary's office is requested from that notary, and where the notary has ceased practice, from the Notary Chamber's archive or the designated successor; an act from a Soviet-era state notarial office or from the 1990s is traced in the Chamber's archive by the office, the year and the parties. We locate acts for clients who know only that a contract was "notarized in Tbilisi in the nineties" or that a parent "made a will somewhere": from the electronic register where the act is recent, from the archive's indexes where it is old, and from the Chamber's records where the notary is unknown; a search of the register of wills after a death is a standard step in every succession we handle, and searches for old property contracts and powers of attorney are routine in inheritance, property and litigation files. The search, the request and the issue take from a day for our own archive to a few weeks for old acts at the Chamber.

Use abroad, and re-issued translations

A duplicate or a certified copy from the archive is a Georgian notarial act and is apostilled through the Ministry of Justice route in one to three business days for use in any Hague country, or legalized through the consular chain for others, and translated by a notarized translation into the destination's language; a foreign authority that asks for a lost Georgian power of attorney, contract or inheritance certificate receives it this way without the original ever being found. Notarized translations made at our office are re-issued from the archive when a client loses them or when an authority wants a second original - a second university, a second consulate - without a second translation, at the notary's fee only, and with the same register number as the first, which some authorities appreciate.

What to bring, fees and timing

Bring your valid passport or Georgian ID; whatever you know of the act - its register number if you have it, the date or approximate year, the notary, the parties and its subject; and the proof of your entitlement - the act's details for a party, the death certificate and relationship documents for an heir, the power of attorney for a representative. Send these on WhatsApp, Telegram or email and we locate the act and prepare the request; a duplicate from our own archive is issued the same day at Agmashenebeli 117, a duplicate from another notary's or the Chamber's archive within days to a few weeks depending on its age. Fees follow the official tariff for the issue of duplicates, copies and extracts, per act and per page; the search of old archives, the translation, the apostille and courier are quoted separately in advance.

Frequently asked questions

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