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Solicitor Journal
Notarial Services T
he most common request made by all clients, whether private individuals or businesses, is to notarise, or arrange for legalisation, of documents urgently. As a result I will
often see clients out of hours including weekends. These clients often also seek clarity concerning the process of working with an overseas lawyer, which is where my experience, training and knowledge can help.
Overseas lawyers have very varied requirements when they request that documents are properly executed or facts properly authenticated. Simply because one lawyer in a certain jurisdiction has accepted a particular way of notarising something, does not mean that another lawyer in the same jurisdiction will have the same requirements as the first lawyer. Being able to understand the individual jurisdiction and the lawyer’s requirements within it, I see as part of my role to enable the client to successfully complete the execution of the documents required by the foreign lawyer. This can often involve emailing the foreign lawyer to check their requirements and clarify outstanding issues.
Private client work The work I do for private individuals is very varied, as these examples of my recent work shows
• Notarising a ‘consent to travel’ form enabling the children of a couple to travel to Thailand on World Challenge
• Certifying the continued existence of the widow of a pensioner who receives a pension from the United Nations
• Certifying a statutory declaration for a couple who wanted to get married in Cyprus where that declaration needed to be notarised but not legalised
• Notarising and arranging for the legalisation of a power of attorney appointing a lawyer in Turkey to purchase a property for clients here
Nearly all notarial work gives an insight into some interesting situations that the clients are involved in, as a result which I am involved. For example a very recent case I dealt with involved notarising a client’s identity and signature for various banks, which would enable her to purchase a small part of the jungle in Belize. She intended to maintain and develop this land to provide an income for her adopted Belizean son in the future.
www.lawyer-monthly.com
JULY 2014
This month, we speak to James Couzens, a Notary Public based from Aylesbury Notary, who deals with clients from Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Hertfordshire and elsewhere in the Thames Valley area, about notarial services and the legal implications surrounding it.
Business Clients I also carry out a varied range of work for companies, and some of my recent work includes –
• Notarising an invoice for a leading helicopter company to arrange a training programme for the Brazilian Navy
• Notarising a power of attorney to appoint a lawyer in Mexico to help register a new medical product for a company based in the UK
• Notarising the appointment of an agent in Saudi Arabia to enable my client to do business there
• Notarising the appointment of an agent in relation to a tender for an Egyptian armaments contract, for a cutting-edge imaging manufacturer, among whose products is a camera which takes 1billion photographs per second
Legalisation These cases all involved different types of legalisation. Cyprus doesn’t need it; Brazil requires its consulate to legalise the document but no more than that; Mexico and Turkey require an Apostille but no consular legalisation; Thailand and Saudi Arabia require both, with the complication that in the case of Saudi Arabia it is the Arab-British Chamber of Commerce which is providing the equivalent to consular legalisation.
The document legalisation process is not complex in itself, but as the examples show, you have to know which country requires what. In addition some consulates have different requirements for example the Thai Consulate requires a copy of the document. It therefore pays to have access to an individual who deals with consulates on a day to day basis. For this reason I use an agent to whom I send all my documents for legalisation. This means that the processes is carried out as efficiently and swiftly as possible, which is often one of the major requirements, and also helps keep client’s costs down because I do not spend my time liaising with the consulate.
If an Apostille is required urgently i.e. within 24 hours, then this can only be done through a professionally registered individual such as a notary.
The fees charged for legalisation by consulates are reasonable (typically £10-£40) but will be more expensive if the requirement is urgent. However, even on a non-urgent basis, some legalisation cases
can be very expensive. For example, the United Arab Emirates consulate charge £400 for each commercial document and each document that is notarised must be legalised individually.
I believe that legalisation can appear daunting to the outsider because of the numerous variations and processes, but it is only complex because of that, and not for any other reason.
Legislative Issues The rules and regulations governing notaries are stable and we are not affected by many legislative changes. Perhaps the most significant change in the law in recent times was the one relating to the execution of documents by companies allowing for just one director and one lay witness to be witnesses to a deed in order for it to be properly executed by the company. This change gives rise to another example of how, as a notary, you must take account of the requirements of the lawyer in the jurisdiction concerned. I recently had a case involving a document required for Spain in which the lawyer in Spain insisted that, because the document was being executed by a company, it should be witnessed either by two directors or one director and the company secretary, i.e. the old legal requirement. My client knew about the new law and was going to execute it in accordance with that, thinking that the Spanish lawyer was making an incorrect demand, which strictly he was, but if the client had gone ahead as he wished, it is very likely that the document would not have been accepted by the Spanish lawyer.
The rules governing notaries are issued by the Faculty Office of the Archbishop of Canterbury and these have recently been consolidated and updated. One of the most significant changes means that notaries are now far more actively supervised, which includes the Faculty Office undertaking ongoing inspections of notaries’ businesses and the way in which they operate. LM
By James Couzens Notary Public
The Friarage 25a Rickford´s Hill Aylesbury Buckinghamshire HP20 2RT Email :
James@AylesburyNotary.co.uk
Tel: 01296 318536 Mob: 07789 623052 Web:
www.aylesburynotary.co.uk
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