Articles of Amendment

Articles of Amendment are a business records tool used to make amendment, corrections and additions to the original Articles of Incorporation, Articles of Formation and Articles of Organization. However, the amendment does not replace the initial incorporation or formation record.

WHAT CAN BE AMENDED?

All information from the original articles or incorporation or formation may be amended. Typically amendments will be applied to the name of the entity. In this case the document will be Articles of Amendment: Name Change. Sometimes the amendment is made for the shares, i.e. change of class or number. Also, an amendment may be filed for a specific paragraph of the initial articles. 

In cases when the amendments are vast and apply to major part pf the original Articles of Incorporation or Articles of Formation, a different type of amendment is filed: Amendment and Restated Articles of Incorporation, Formation or Organization. 

HOW TO ORDER ARTICLES OF AMENDMENT?

When requesting Articles of Amendment for business records, dometic use or international purposes there are few things that you need to consider. 

First, there are multiple amendments files over the year, it is important to know exact information about the amendment, such as filing date. 

Next, for apostille, authentication and attestation purposes the articles of amendment must be certified copy. 

Also, since the articles of amendment do not replace the actual registration document, i.e Articles of Incorporation or Articles of Formation, you may need more than one document. 

WHAT ARE APOSTILLE ARTICLES OF AMENDMENT?

Apostille certificate may only be issued for Certified Copy of Articles of Amendment or Certified Copy of Certificate of Amendment. Moreover, the Articles or Certificates must be certified and issued no more than six months prior to their submission for apostille. In other words, if you have a certified copy of Articles of Amendment issued five years ago, it will not be accepted for apostille processing.  

WHAT IF APOSTILLE IS NOT ACCEPTED?

In cases when the documents are being prepared for countries which are not part of Apostille Convention, a special authentication process must be followed. This is known as Embassy Attestation. To get documents authenticated, they will have to go through the Office of Secretary of State, Authentications office at US Department of State and lastly stamped by the Consular Section of the target Embassy or Consulate.