Notary Public

Notary Public

Our Notaries can undertake the following types of notarial certification for individuals and for companies:

• Powers of Attorney for worldwide use (we can also draft Powers of Attorney, if required)
• Statutory Declarations
• International Affidavits, Sworn Statements, and Depositions
• Notarising Private Agreements for Worldwide use, including use in the UK.
• Certified Translations
• Property Documents for worldwide use
• Fingerprinting confirmation
• Doctors and Dentists Examination Submission
• Lost Passports & Birth Certificates
• Change of Name deed preparation and Notarisation
• Certified Copy Documents for worldwide use
• Permission for Children to Travel with a lone Parent
• Retirement Life Certificates
• Adoption Papers and Verifications
• Certificates as to Residency
• Immigration Invitation Support Forms
• Single Sponsorship form
• Joint Sponsorship form
• University Certificate and School Qualification Verifications
• Overseas Car Purchases or Sales Documentation
• Passport Photos and True Likeness Certificates
• Certified copy of a passport
• Certification of the execution of Company Powers of Attorney
• Providing Notarisation of Certificates of Incorporation or Memorandum & Articles of Association for UK Companies
• Notarised Certificates of Good Standing
• Certification of Identity of Directors, Secretaries and other Company Officers
• Certifying the execution of Commercial Contracts for worldwide use
• Providing Certified Copies of Company Resolutions, Minutes, Reports and other Company Documents
• Commissioner for Oaths Services

Who is a Notary Public?

A Notary is a qualified lawyer – a member of the third and oldest branch of the legal profession in the United Kingdom.  He is appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, with delegated authority from the Queen, and is subject to regulation by the Court of Faculties of the Archbishop of Canterbury. 
A Notary Public is authorised to authenticate documents for use abroad, i.e. for use in any country outside of England & Wales.

Why choose Premier Solicitors?

Our Notary Public Lawyers , have several years experience in dealing with a wide range of Notarial Services, and are a specialists in notarial work for private individuals and for companies.

Our Notary Public Lawyers work full time and are usually able to fit you in at short notice.  We offer extended opening hours 9am to 7pm weekdays and Saturday 10am to 2pm. 

Getting ready for your appointment

• We expect you to make an appointment.  Please call us on 01234 34 81 98 or email: [email protected]
• We need you to bring good evidence of identity. Generally this will have to be a current valid passport, and driving licence or an original and recent (i.e. less than 3 months old) council tax, or electricity bill, or bank statement with your name and address on it, in order to confirm your address.
• If you are signing a document on behalf of a Company, then we will additionally need to undertake Companies House checks on the Company and its Directors.  We will require you to provide us with the Company Number so we may undertake the search.  We will also usually require 2 Directors, or 1 Director and the Company Secretary, to personally attend to sign the document(s), bringing with them their personal ID documents (as above).  We will also require a copy of the Board Minute, whereby the Board has authorised the signing of the document by the 2 Directors (or 1 Director and the Company Secretary).
• We need to be satisfied that you understand any document, and so you will need to have read and understood the document before you attend the appointment.  If you have any queries about the document then you will need to raise these queries with the lawyer/person who drew up the document.  If a document is not in English, then we will usually need to see certified translation.
• We will want to see any relevant papers or documents that relate to the matter prior to the appointment. It can save time, expense and mistakes, if you send to the Notary Public, before the appointment by post, fax or email, full photocopies of the document(s) to be notarised and any covering correspondence and instructions from the destination country.  Direct fax: 01234 21 33 73.  Direct email: [email protected]
• You will need to sign the document(s) in the presence of the Notary Public, so do not sign the document (s) beforehand.  If you have already signed the document before reading these instructions, then you will need to arrange for a fresh copy of the document to be sent to you.
• We do not take plastic, so our fees are payable by cash or cheque.  Cheques are to be made payable to The Notary Public Lawyer who see you. 
• Please see Terms & Conditions.
• If you fail to bring in the documentation as required, then you will need to re-book a new appointment.

How long will it take?

If the document is straightforward, already prepared and in the correct form the Notary is likely to need to see you for a minimum of 15 – 20 minutes and complete it in half an hour. Obviously it takes longer if the document is not straightforward, or the Notary has to draw up the document or deal with any non-routine aspects.

Legalisation services - what is an Apostille?

Frequently, once a document has been notarised, some further formalities must be undertaken before it can be sent overseas, generally either in the form of consular legalisation (often referred to simply as “consularisation”) or an Apostille.

An Apostille is a certificate issued by the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (‘FCO’) confirming the signature and seal of the notary, in accordance with the Hague Convention dealing international legal matters.  The FCO now only operate a postal service to obtain an Apostille, which can take a few weeks for them to process, but are open to professional users such as us, and so we would be pleased to help you if you cannot early and quickly attend to this yourself. This usually takes 4 to 5 days. We also offer an Express Apostille service which is a 2 day turnaround.

Our fees for our Express Apostille service are £140 (including the FCO Apostille fee of £75, and courier fee to/from FCO).

Some countries still require notarial documents to be legalised and the document must in these circumstances be presented to the consulate or other diplomatic representation of the country where the document is to be used.  Again, we can arrange for a courier service to deal with legalisation at a number of agencies, and if this is required we will need to know in advance to obtain a fee quote from our courier agent.

What does it cost?

We normally charge a set fee of £60 per document/signature required to be attended to by the Notary Public.

If further independent witnesses are required, we charge £5 per witness.

For companies, we are required to undertake searches at Companies House and these cost in the region of £1 to £6, and these disbursements will be in addition to our fees.

A full quotation can only be provided if full papers are provided to the Notary Public in advance of making an appointment.

Non-routine work is charged for on an hourly rate basis.  The hourly rate of the Notary Public is £225.00.  The Notary Public will agree this with you beforehand, but can usually offer a fixed fee.

The Foreign & Commonwealth Office charge £30 to affix an Apostille to a document. Their postal service usually takes 2 to 3 weeks. We can arrange this for you for a fee of £70 per document (including the FCO fee of £30, and courier fees), and this usually takes 4 to 5 days.

If you additionally require consular legalisation from a specific embassy, we can arrange this for you.  Please let us know in advance and we can obtain a fee quote from our courier agent.

Fees for Saturday appointments must be paid for in advance.

If you require a home visit, for the elderly and infirm, we charge a fixed fee of £150 for dealing with a personal document within a 10 mile radius of the office.  We require you to send in your ID documents so we can copy them in advance, and send in full papers so we can prepare and print any notarial certificates, and require payment in advance.

If you require an office visit, for company documents, we charge this on a time spent basis at the hourly rate of the Notary Public.  We require you to send in full papers so we can prepare and print any notarial certificates, and can invoice the company for the agreed fees.

We do not take plastic, so our fees are payable by cash or cheque.  Cheques are to be made payable to The Notary Public Lawyer who see you.

But all I want is a signature?

It is not just any signature that you are after, it is the signature and seal of a Notary Public that you require.  A Notary Public is a specialist lawyer that deals with international legal matters, and so charges in accordance with the expertise they offer.

There are a number of professional obligations which are inherent in the process of notarising documents that the Notary must comply with, which include: identifying the Appearer; keeping copies of the Appearer’s identification documents; ensuring that the Appearer has the necessary capacity to sign the document; ensuring that the Appearer has the necessary authority to sign the document; ensuring that the Appearer has read and understood the document and that they understand that they will be bound by the document; maintaining a protocol register of details of the Appearer and details of the work performed; keeping and storing copies of the relevant documents (for the rest of the life of the Notary, including making arrangements for the storage of your documents after death!).  A Notary Public is usually a member of the Notaries Society, and is answerable to the Faculties Office of the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Powers of Attorney for worldwide use (we can also draft Powers of Attorney, if required)

You would normally get the document drawn up by your lawyer in the relevant overseas jurisdiction, and this is what we recommend.

We cannot generally advise on overseas law.  If you require us to prepare the Power of Attorney for your use then we will do so and prepare a standard form document for you, but this is fully at your own risk.  If the document is then unacceptable to the receiving jurisdiction then you will of course incur additional expense, as well as delay, in asking either us, or an overseas lawyer to draw up the document, so it is best to get it right the first time.

We often draw up Powers of Attorney for Commonwealth (or former Commonwealth) countries, and an English Power of Attorney is accepted.  We do these mostly for India and Pakistan, but we do repeat this is fully at your own risk.  Clients ask us to draw up such documents due to the impracticality of locating a suitable Indian/Pakistani lawyer.

If you require us to do this for you, then we require the following information from you:

• The full name and address of the person giving the Power (i.e. the Donor);
• The full name and address of the person to act on the Donor’s behalf (i.e. the Attorney);
• The full name of the father of the Donor;
• The full name of the father of the Attorney;
• The address of the land/property;
• What ‘transaction’ needs to be dealt with;
• A passport photo for each Donor.

Indian / Pakistani Powers of Attorney

We would recommend that you bring a passport sized photograph for each Donor, as Indian/Pakistani authorities generally like to see these affixed to the Power of Attorney.

Statutory Declarations and Affidavits

A statutory declaration is a legal document, and is commonly used to allow a person to affirm something to be true for the purposes of satisfying a legal requirement or regulation, where no other evidence is available.

An affidavit is very similar, but it is a sworn document, and is often used for matters to do with court.

We can prepare the statutory declaration or affidavit for you, and then notarise it for you.  Our fees for the preparation of this type of formal legal document range between £50 and £150, depending on what is required.  You will need to let us know what guidance you have been provided with, and email to us the detail of the content of the document, and we can then prepare the document in legal form.  The fee for notarising the document will be in addition, and is as detailed in the fees section above.

Sponsorship Declarations

Click here for a copy of the single sponsorship declaration form or click here for a copy of the joint sponsorship declaration form. We provide this to you free of charge.

Sponsorship Declarations no longer (for several years now) need to have a notarial signature and seal, and can be attested by a qualified Solicitor.  Our Solicitors charge £5 (cash fee) for dealing with this for you.  The document needs to be fully completed beforehand, but you must not sign it until you see the Solicitor.  The Solicitor will not check anything, but just require you to certify that the details you have given are correct and sign the document.

The problem is that many Indian/Pakistani authorities are used to seeing the signature and seal of a Notary Public, and want the reassurance that the details on the Sponsorship Declaration have been properly checked.  Our Notary Public can do this for you and will charge only £60 to give you this additional assurance and peace of mind.  The Notary Public will need to see all of the following original documents:

1. Passport;
2. UK driving licence to confirm address (or original and recent (i.e. less than 3 months old) utility bill or bank statement with name and address;
3. Evidence of occupation stated – i.e. one or more of payslip, employment contract, pension book, accounts – which states occupation;
4. Evidence of earnings stated – i.e. one or more of payslip, employment contract, pension book, accounts, tax return, letter from accountant – which verifies earnings figure stated;
5. Bank statement from relevant bank verifying figure stated; and
6. Title deeds verifying ownership of property – these can be downloaded from the Land Registry for £3 - Click Here for the appropriate page - or tenancy agreement if your property is rented.

University Certificate and School Qualification Verifications

Often people require educational certificates to be sent overseas in connection with a new job or course that they will be commencing.

There are 2 types of certification that the Notary Public can undertake. 

Firstly, the Notary Public can simply photocopy each certificate and prepare a notarial certificate to state: that the educational certificates have been produced to him by the Appearer on the date in question, and the Notary has verified the identity of the Appearer, and that the Notary has seen the original of such certificates, and that the Apperarer states they are genuine, but that the Notary has not verified that the certificates are genuine. This is the type of certification that most clients require. We charge £60 for preparing each notarial certificate to deal with an educational certificate, and if there are a number of educational certificates done under cover of one notarial certificate, then we charge £10 for each additional educational certificate that needs to be dealt with.

Or secondly, if the receiving jurisdiction requires that the Notary Public verifies that the certificates are genuine then we can do this.  We will need to write to each organisation that issued the certificate and obtain their written confirmation that the certificate is genuine.  The educational establishment, or examination body, often require specific forms to be completed and signed by the client with a payment of their fee, and the process varies from organisation to organisation.  This type of certification can take many weeks to complete (depending on the number of certificates, and formalities required by the organisation).  We charge for such work on a time spent basis at the hourly rate of the Notary Public, i.e. £225.00 per hour.

Foreign documents

Where a document is in a foreign language the Notary will normally ask you to prepare it and sign it in English so that it may be properly translated in the country to which it is to be sent.  Similarly, arrangements may have to be made for a competent professional interpreter to be available at the interview.  There will be additional cost if an interpreter, or translation services, are required.

Call us today on 01234 35 80 80 to speak to a member of our qualified team.