Witnessing your documents
At Nelsons, we provide Notary Public services through Martin Jinks, Partner, who is regulated by The Faculty Office of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Our Notary services mean we act independently and verify documents that carry legal implications.
- This often involves witnessing documents for use abroad
- To become a Notary, a solicitor needs additional qualifications and there are only about 750 in England and Wales
Notary Public services
A Notary verifies, authenticates and records deeds, documents and facts for cross-border transactions, performing a vital function for individuals and international trade and business.
Common Notarial tasks we undertake include:
- Witnessing Powers of Attorney for overseas use
- Authenticating:
- Documents and information for immigration or emigration purposes
- Documents for people wanting to apply to marry or work abroad
- Company and business documents
- Bank instruction documents
- International affidavits and statutory declarations
- International copyright documentation
- Change of name
- Confirmation of single status
- Passport photos and true likeness certificate
- Verification of adoption documents
- Education and qualification verifications
- The legalisation of documents for overseas use
Notaries can also do work for businesses involved in international trade.
Our Notary Public services – Key stages of work and timescales
- Prior to the meeting with the Notary, you will receive information regarding our requirements plus a copy of the Notarial terms. Please ensure that you read through the requirements carefully and raise any queries before the meeting as this should save time at and following the meeting.
- The meeting itself will normally last approximately 30 minutes. It is usually possible, subject to holidays etc., to obtain an appointment with one of our Notaries within 10 working days.
- In certain circumstances, it is possible for some documents to be notarised remotely, using video conference technology such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Skype, Facetime or other similar online platforms, provided regulations can be complied with. For further information on having documents notarised remotely, click here.
- If you also need to obtain an Apostille on any documents that we have notarised, you can apply via this Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) page. At present, the fee for an Apostille is £30 per document, plus courier fees or postage. Please note that it normally takes the FCO about a week to turn it around. If legalisation at another embassy is also required then there will be an additional timescale – this can vary greatly, anything from one to 20 working days in addition.
- Most notarial work can be completed at one attendance. If a second attendance is required we will normally try to arrange this at the time of the first attendance and would hope to do this within a period of 10 working days.
Please note, we carry professional indemnity liability cover of £30,000,000 which is in excess of the minimum level of cover specified by the Master of the Faculties. Therefore we limit the level of our liability to you to £30,000,000.