Regulatory Matters

Our notaries are regulated through the Faculty Office of the Archbishop of Canterbury:

The Faculty Office
1, The Sanctuary
Westminster
London
SW1P 3JT

Telephone: 020 7222 5381
Email: faculty.office@1thesanctuary.com
Website: www.facultyoffice.org.uk

Our notarial practice is regulated through the Faculty Office of the Archbishop of Canterbury:

The Faculty Office
1, The Sanctuary
Westminster
London 
SW1P 3JT

Telephone:020 7222 5381
Email: Faculty.office@1thesanctuary.com
Website: www.facultyoffice.org.uk

If you are dissatisfied about the service you have received, firstly please contact us at info@notary.co.uk. We will try our best to promptly address your concerns.

If we cannot resolve the matter, you may then complain to the Notaries Society, of which our notaries are members, who have a Complaints Procedure which is approved by the Faculty Office. This procedure is free to use and is designed to provide a quick resolution to any dispute.

To contact the Notaries Society, please write (but do not enclose any original documents) with full details of your complaint to:

The Secretary of The Notaries Society
P O Box 876
Chichester PO19 9ZH
Email: secretary@thenotariessociety.org.uk

If you have any difficulty in making a complaint in writing, please call the Notaries Society/the Faculty Office for assistance.

Finally, even if you have your complaint considered under the Notaries Society Approved Complaints Procedure, you may at the end of that procedure, or after a period of 8 weeks from the date you first notified us that you were dissatisfied, make your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman, if you are not happy with the result:

Legal Ombudsman
P O Box 6167
Slough SL1 0EH

Telephone:0300 555 0333
Email: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk
Website: www.legalombudsman.org.u

If you decide to make a complaint to the Legal Ombudsman, you must refer your matter to the Legal Ombudsman within one year from the act/omission or within one year from when you should reasonably have known there was cause for complaint.

Please note certain kinds of commercial entities are not eligible to make a complaint to the Legal Ombudsman – please refer to the Legal Ombudsman Scheme Rules or consult the Faculty Office.

• Before we do any work for you, we will provide you with a detailed cost breakdown. The total cost will include (1) our fee, and if applicable, (2) VAT and (3) disbursements.
• Our fee is the fee we charge for the work we complete. This may be calculated based on either: a fixed-fee, hourly rate, or hybrid of the two.
• For notarisation the minimum fixed-fee rate we charge per document is £80.00. For commercial documents, the minimum fixed-fee rate is £100.00.  For more complex requests, fees will be calculated based on the notary’s hourly rate which is currently £250.00.
• For call out visits, the fee is based on the time it will take for the notary to travel to and from the requested destination. The minimum fee is £250 for the first hour and thereafter £250 for each hour involved in travelling, returning and time spent at the location. Where the time taken to arrive or return from a particular destination for a call out exceeds 1 hour but is less than 2 hours (or a further integer), then our fees for such additional time will be pro-rated accordingly (for example, for 1 ½ hours’ travel time to and from a particular call out visit, our firm’s fees would be £375).
• The fee for legalisation services is calculated on a fixed fee basis, with a minimum fee for private individuals of £50.00 for our standard service and £100.00 for Next-day service, whilst for companies the fee is £150.00 for Next-day service and £100 for our standard service. Consular legalisation services are also calculated on a fixed fee basis of £100.00 per consulate. The handling fee for translation services is £50.00.
• Our fee also includes fees charged for Commissioner for Oaths certifications. We provide this service on a discretionary basis for documents to be used only in England and Wales. Pricing is subject to the current statutory rate, namely £5.00 for witnessing an affidavit, declaration or affirmation, and £2.00 for each exhibit to be signed. Where the statutory rate is not applicable, the fixed fee for a Commissioner for Oaths certification is £10.00. A fixed appointment fee of £50.00 will also apply. Please note that for any document to be used outside of the United Kingdom, including South Africa and Hong Kong, we only provide notarial certification.
• If you are residing in the United Kingdom VAT (value-added tax) will be applied to our fees. This is currently 20% of the total price for our fee. Our VAT registration number is 946522901. If you are resident outside of the United Kingdom, VAT will not be charged.
• Where we incur any costs from third parties, these fees will be passed directly on to you as disbursements. These disbursements include any fees charged by consulates and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) when legalising a document. The FCDO apostille fee for the various services we offer are as follows – (1) Urgent restricted service – £100 per apostille, (2) Next day service – £40 per apostille, (3) Standard service – £40 per apostille (4) e-Apostille service – £35 per apostille.
• We will inform you of the disbursement cost when providing you with a quote. For an indication of fees you can also visit our apostille section and consular legalisation guide. Please note that any consulate fee will be provided to you in good faith, however consulates can change their fees and procedures without notice. Additional disbursements may include translation fees, Companies House fees, and fees charged by universities for verification. These fees will be advised to you at the outset and we will not incur any disbursements without your consent. VAT will not be charged on disbursements.
• We reserve the right to demand payment up front, immediately on completion of the instruction or by invoice payable within seven working days, unless otherwise agreed in writing. Invoices will be issued by email. If payment is late, we reserve the right to charge interest on any amount overdue, the rate being fixed at 8% from the date the invoice falls due. Any query related to the invoice must be raised immediately on receipt of the invoice.
• We do not issue refunds once the work has been commenced. If you request us to stop the work whilst the instruction is on-going you will be required to pay a cancellation fee amounting to 50% of the agreed quote for our fees, and the cost of any disbursements incurred by us. Once the work has been completed, you will be required to pay the full agreed price.
• Where we are instructed through an intermediary (such as a solicitor, agent, or other third party), we will provide a breakdown of our fees to the intermediary at the outset of the matter, unless our charges are already known to the intermediary through regular prior dealings with us.
• If you are the end client and would like to clarify the fees being charged for your matter, you are welcome to contact us or the intermediary directly to confirm our charges.
• Please note that intermediaries may apply their own separate charges for arranging or managing the instruction. We do not pay or receive commission or referral fees in connection with such arrangements.
• We may not complete work or release any notarised and/or legalised documents until payment has been made.

• We carry professional indemnity liability cover of £1,000,000 (one million pounds sterling). We therefore limit the level of our liability to you to £1,000,000 (one million pounds sterling), unless you are injured or die as a result of our negligence, in which case our liability is without limit.

• We are a provider of notarial services. In addition, we offer ancillary services including legalisation and translation services. A general outline and likely timescales for these services are set out below.
• Our notarial service begins by booking an appointment to see a notary. At the appointment we will ask you to complete a client registration form and will carry out any identity checks that are deemed necessary. An appointment will usually take between 15-30 minutes, during which time the notary will notarise your document. On completion of the job, the notary will provide you with your notarial document, a scan of the document and we will take payment. For further guidance please visit our notarisation page.
• Our legalisation service usually follows on from notarisation. If you require either an apostille or consular legalisation, we will discuss the options for getting this done during our initial conversation. At your appointment we will ask you to complete a client registration form and take payment from you. You will then leave the document with us, and we will carry out the required legalisation.
• If you opt for an apostille on our Next-day service, the apostille will be complete within 1-3 working days. On our Standard service it will be complete in 5 working days.  E-apostille services will be completed within 2 working days of submission at the FCDO.  Documents submitted on the Urgent Restricted Service will be completed within 1 working day.
• If you require consular legalisation, we will take your document to the required consulate after the document has been apostilled. Timescales and requirements vary per consulate, and for more guidance on timescales you can visit our consular legalisation page. It should be noted that completion of consular legalisation is provided not as of right but, rather, at the discretion of a particular consulate. We cannot therefore guarantee that consular legalisation of your notarised and / or apostilled documents will be accepted and we accept no liability in this regard of whatsoever nature.
• To use our translation service, you will need to email a scan of the document you require translating. Most translations are completed within 2-3 working days, however the lead time will depend on the length of the document to be translated. We will provide an estimated timeframe when quoting you.