Earlier visa office instructions for Buffalo (2007 and 2008 versions) specifically indicated photocopies had to be notarized and then sent along with the application.
I am checking the latest Buffalo visa office instruction guide which does NOT mention that photocopies have to be notarized. they say only documents that are in a language other than English or French need to be accompanied with a notarized translation. Here is the link for the latest instruction guide for Buffalo.
Check page 2 below Appendix A checklist.
The sentence (in instruction guide for 2008) "Send notarized photocopies of all documents except the police certificates, which must be originals" has been completly deleted in the 2009 instruction guide.
Hello all, I am interested to know answer to the same question. I live in the U.S. Getting Notary signature is becoming an extremely expensive affair for Canadian PR. I would really like to avoid Notary wherever I can. I would really appreciate if someone can throw light on this subject.
yes, it is expensive @ $5 per copy
Pl try to reach your city hall office, they do this for free, I got my copies certified / notarized for no cost. Had to just pay the photocopy cost. They do the photocopy by themself.
Hi PV, thanks to your input on this. Even though, I did not see your message until now, I did negotiate with one of the fingerprinting technician who also does the notary to do my 25 notaries for $45. By the way, its not $5 in Florida. Its $10 / signature / seal. Hope this helps.
I also have the same query....since the new checklist doesnt say anything about notarized copies do we really need to send notarized docs or just plain photocopies are fine...please let me know.
I am a kind of person who follows the instructions, literally. Having said that, if its me, I would only submit plain photocopies where you didn't make any changes to the format of the original. But, for those that you had to do any translation or any editing to the original document, I would get it notarized. Hope this helps.
The rules for sending documents and PCC's fluctuate so wildly, it's better to be safe than sorry in my opinion. That being said, getting each and every document notarized is a huge pain.....
