Witnessing your documents
At Nelsons, we provide Notary Public services through Martin Jinks, Partner at our Derby office.
Our Notary services means we act independently and verify documents that carry legal implications.
- This often involves preparing or witnessing documents for use abroad
- To become a Notary, a solicitor needs additional qualifications and there are only about 900 in England and Wales
Our Notaries are regulated by The Faculty Office of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
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 include:
- Preparing and witnessing Powers of Attorney for overseas use
- Authenticating documents and information for immigration or emigration purposes
- Authenticating documents for people wanting to apply to marry or work abroad
- Authenticating company and business documents
- Providing documents for the administration of estates of people who are abroad
- 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
- 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.
- If we are then instructed to obtain Apostille on the document, then this will take up to five working days for the document to be sent to the Foreign Office and returned to us.
- 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.