Notary Public – Pricing
Due to the time involved in providing the service as a Notary detailed in this page, one pre-prepared document on its own is at least £150 plus VAT. VAT is currently 20% but can be subject to change by the government.
However, if much of the work does not have to be duplicated, the charge for second and subsequent documents which need to be notarised in the same visit is likely to be less and the charge for each document after the first document in the same visit would be at least £50 plus VAT. VAT is currently 20% but can be subject to change by the government. An estimate of the charge for your specific requirements will be emailed to you once you have supplied to me each document that you require to be notarised and confirmed what jurisdiction each document to be notarised is to be used in and the timescales within which the documents are needed to be notarised.
There will be additional charges that I make to you if in particular I either have to prepare the document to be notarised myself or if I have to travel out of my office to see you. If that applies, my additional charge for the work would be on a time spent basis based on an hourly rate charge I would make. The hourly rate charge is currently £370 plus VAT per hour. VAT is currently 20% but can be subject to change by the government.
Disbursements (third party expenses)
Some (not all) countries required notarised documents to be legalised at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO). The FCO does this by affixing an Apostille which is the UK government effectively confirming my status as a legitimate Notary Public. The FCO charges a sum of £45 per document plus a flat fee of £5 for the costs of returning the document(s). You would be liable to pay this additional cost.
I use a legalisation agent to get any notarised documents legalised. You are at liberty to arrange independently for any notarised documents to be legalised at the FCO yourself though. If you do choose to use the legalisation agent service, the legalisation agent will charge a minimum fee of £25 per document.
If you decide to get the notarised documents legalised yourself, you will have to pay the FCO a fee of £5 if the documents are to be sent back to a UK address, £21 for Europe (excluding some countries) and £25 for the rest of the world. Please note these fees can change without prior warning so I suggest you speak to the FCO directly before you pay the above mentioned fee.
Some countries require further legalisation of the documents at their own Embassy. I can arrange this with the assistance of a legalisation agent. The costs vary from country to country and in some cases within the country itself (depending on whether the documents are private or commercial). I will confirm the exact costs once you supply me with each document that needs to be notarised and confirm the jurisdiction where the notarised documents are to be relied upon.
Timing and process
Some (not all) countries require documents to be legalised at the FCO. The FCO does this by affixing an Apostille stamp on the notarised document under the Hague Convention, whereby the UK Government confirms my status as a Notary. The documents are usually returned in about 5 working days but do be aware this can take longer depending on the FCO’s capabilities at the applicable time.
In addition, after a document has been legalised at the FCO through the Apostille stamp, some countries require that the document is also legalised by their own consulate in this country before they would accept the legalised document in their country. If that applies to the document that you required to be notarised then you have to be aware that I am unable to confirm how long a particular consulate may take to legalise a document because this varies between countries and often consulates do not publish their response times and additionally consulates can shut or close down temporarily without warning.
The process for a document to be legalised is usually first you will attend at my office when I will issue my notarial seal on the document to be legalised and then if applicable the document will be legalised by the FCO and finally if required the document will be legalised by the applicable country’s consulate before being returned to me. I will then advise you the document has been returned and this will usually either be collected by you or posted to you.