You are in receipt of a French pension and...

You are in receipt of a French pension and received a form called "certificat de vie" or "certificat d’existence" which you are asked to sign and have endorsed for your paiments not to stop.

This is a normal procedure which will recur once a year, or, in some rare cases, twice.

This procedure falls within the competence of the local authorities. The consulate is no longer authorized to routinely notarize such a document

You can refer to the sheriff’s office, to the circuit court or to the city clerk.

However, those authorities often refuse to sign the "certificats de vie", we thus advise you to contact a notary public.

You will find below the 2019 Notary Handbook for California. The role and obligations of a Notoary Public are very similar throughout the whole juridiction of this Consulate.

(PDF - 642.7 kb)

Please note that a notary public is perfectly allowed to legalize a document written in a foreign language (see page 20 of the handbook)

In order to minimise the risk of errors, we strongly advise that you fill in your form (without signing it) before you appear before the notary.