Starting from a Nottingham boardroom
A corporate resolution records a decision a company's own directors, or its shareholders, have taken. Common examples include appointing a new director, opening a bank account, or approving a specific overseas transaction. Nobody outside the company writes it. The minute is drafted, discussed and signed off inside the business itself, often at a routine board meeting. There is no official form to fill in and no application to file before the meeting happens.
Because the record starts as private company paperwork, the route to an apostille begins with certification rather than collection. A solicitor, or the company secretary acting in that role, certifies the signed minute as a true copy. That certified copy is the piece of paper that eventually reaches the FCDO Legalisation Office, not the original minute book itself. Keeping the minute book in the company's own files while a copy travels avoids any risk of it going missing in transit.
What a resolution proves overseas
A foreign bank often wants a certified, apostilled resolution before letting a company open an account in another country. It shows that the person signing the account application actually has authority to act for the company, rather than acting alone without a mandate.
A foreign companies registry can ask for the same paper when a UK company appoints a local director or agent for an overseas subsidiary. A resolution approving a specific contract or property purchase abroad may also need an apostille before a foreign notary or land registry will accept it.
In every one of these cases, the receiving party is really asking one question: did the company properly authorise this? The apostille answers a narrower question underneath that one, confirming that the signatures and seal on the certified copy are genuine. It does not judge whether the underlying decision was a good one, only that the company made it through its own proper process.
Nottingham Register Office is not the right desk
Nottingham Register Office, at The Council House, Old Market Square, Nottingham NG1 2DT, issues certified copies of birth, marriage and death records. A board or shareholder resolution is none of those things, so this office has no part to play here, however central it is to other pages on this site.
The single body that apostilles any UK document, this resolution included, is the FCDO Legalisation Office. It works the same way whichever city the company is registered in, checking the certifying solicitor's or secretary's signature before attaching the stamp. No branch of that office exists in Nottingham; every certified copy, from any city, travels to the same address in Milton Keynes.
Cost and turnaround
Apostilling the certified resolution costs £45 through the standard postal service, or £40 through the faster next-day route open only to registered businesses. Whatever the certifying solicitor charges for the certification step sits outside that figure and is agreed separately with the company. Two invoices, not one, is the normal shape of this cost.
Standard turnaround runs up to 25 working days, plus the time the post takes each way. That window is not guaranteed; a heavier period at the Legalisation Office can stretch it toward the top end. A company planning to open a foreign account or complete an overseas deal on a deadline should build that margin into its own timeline.
Translation notes
Whether the receiving bank, registry or notary abroad wants a translated version depends entirely on their own rules, not on anything the FCDO decides. Some accept the English certified copy with the apostille attached; others expect a certified translation stapled to it before they will act on the resolution. Asking early, before the certified copy is even posted, avoids a second round of certification and postage later.