David Bishop is also a Notary Public. In England and Wales Notaries are largely concerned with the verification of documents and information that will be used in other countries in the world, for clients who have business or property overseas, or who are involved in litigation in foreign Courts.

Notaries form an independent branch of the legal profession, although most are solicitors. Their practice as Notaries is quite separate from their practice of any other profession or business, and is not controlled by the rules affecting solicitors.

While Notaries have the powers of a Commissioner for Oaths (and most of them are also solicitors) the work they do is mainly concerned with foreign matters and their procedures are entirely different.

Identification Requirements
One of the mains functions of a Notary is to verify the identification of the person appearing before him. A passport should therefore be produced in support of identification together with a document, such as a utility bill, which gives the name and address of the client.

There are more complicated requirements where documents are being signed on behalf of an organisation such as a Limited Company. There it is necessary to confirm both the identity of the organisation and the individual and also the position of the individual in the company and their authority to sign the particular document on behalf of the company.

The individual therefore needs to produce the same identification as required above and a letterhead would be required from the company giving its details. In the case of a Limited Company these details can usually be verified through Companies House and if the person signing is a Director or Secretary of the company this can be established in this way. Further evidence will be required of the authority of the individual or individuals to sign on behalf of the company and this will normally be in the form of a Board Resolution confirming that authority.

Legalisation
Many countries require documents to be verified not only by a Notary but also for the Notaries signature and seal to be legalised. An increasing number of countries accept the Hague Convention on legalisation which means that they will accept an Apostille attached to the document by the Legalisation Section of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

This requires that the document has to be sent to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London for the Apostille to be attached and this obviously involves additional time.

In addition to the time taken for the document to get to London and back, the Legalisation Office can take up to ten working days to process documents although they will usually turn them around more quickly for Notaries. In very urgent cases it is possible to have documents legalised by personal attendance in which case they will be done while you wait.

There are agents in London who will attend at the Legalisation Office to obtain an Apostille but obviously their charges are in addition to the basic legalisation fee, which is currently £12 with an extra £3 if the document is to be returned registered post.

Some countries require still further legalisation in addition to the Foreign Office Apostille and this usually has to be done by the Consulate or Embassy of the country concerned and again the fees are variable.