Have you been told you need to “swear an affidavit” and don’t really know what this means? Don’t worry, Notary Lawyer Mississauga can probably help you.

An affidavit is a legal document where someone (whom lawyers like to refer to as the affiant or the deponent) makes a series of statements and then swears that these statements are true.

Affidavits are often used in court as part of legal proceedings, but they can be used in numerous other situations as well. Perhaps you want to get married in another country, you might have to provide the authorities in that country with evidence (probably through a sworn statement) that you have never been married before (or that you are legally divorced) before the other country will issue you a marriage licence.

The most important thing to remember about sworn statements is that everything stated must be true.man swearing under oath

• You are making statements about what you know, not what you think.
• You are setting out facts, not theories.
• You can make a statement about what you reasonably believe to be true, but if you do, you have to be clear that you are expressing a belief and not making a statement of fact.

The reason you need an affidavit will determine what information you need to provide in it. For example, the affidavit to prove you are eligible to marry the love of your life in a foreign country will be very different from an affidavit of service — which sets out how and when you served a document on someone in a court proceeding — but they all start out pretty much the same: you identify yourself and start telling your story. And they pretty much end the same: you appear before a Commissioner of Oaths or a Notary Public, you provide him or her with valid identification, then swear that the contents of the affidavit are true, sign the affidavit, and the Commissioner or Notary then signs and stamps the affidavit for you.

If you need an affidavit Notary Lawyer Mississauga can help you in two major ways.

1. We can help you prepare simple affidavits.

we do not provide legal advice so we only provide drafting assistance in situations where legal advice isn’t required. For example, we can help you draw the affidavit that you want to get married! But we can’t help you draft an affidavit to support a claim in court; for that you really should see a lawyer.

2. We can help you “swear” the affidavit.

An affidavit has to be sworn before a Commissioner of Oaths or a Notary Public for it to be valid. We are Commissioners of Oaths and Notaries Public so we can do this for you. If we are preparing the affidavit for you, swearing it is part of the package. If we did not prepare the affidavit you can bring it in to any one of our offices and we will witness it for you. Please do not sign the affidavit before you bring it in to us. We are required to watch you sign the affidavit in front of us after you confirm that the information in it is true.

Sometimes you might want to refer to another document in your affidavit. This is called an exhibit. Some affidavits have no exhibits; some have many exhibits. For example, in that affidavit you need to get married, you might need to include a copy of your birth certificate or passport, as well as a Divorce Certificate or Judgment. Depending on the country you are dealing with, they might want you to provide other documents as well. Again, Notary Lawyer Mississauga can help. We can refer to additional documents in the affidavit we draft for you and we can, if applicable, certify copies of original documents to attach to your affidavit so you don’t have to give out the originals. If your Affidavit requires exhibits you must take them with you when you have it sworn. The Commissioner or Notary that you swear before must also mark the exhibits as well.