Scope
These terms of business apply to all services provided to you, the client, by Alexander Keenan Notarial Services Limited (Company Number 10227031) of The Old Vicarage Church Close Boston Lincolnshire PE21 6NA England and all references in this document to “we” and “us” and “our” shall refer to this company.
The service provided by me is that of a Notary Public carrying out all permitted notarial activities including, where appropriate, arranging legalisation of documents and sending them to their final destination. An essential part of a notary’s role is to maintain and keep records. You can find more information about how I hander your personal information under the heading ‘Confidentiality and Data Protection’ below.
Price
The fee for this transaction will be based on my hourly rate of £250.00 subject to a minimum fee of £125.00, plus disbursements. The fee charged may include time spent on preliminary advice, drafting and preparation time, making and receiving telephone calls, correspondence written and received in all formats, arranging legalisation and record keeping.
Some documents require legalisation before they will be accepted for use in the receiving jurisdiction by obtaining an apostille through the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office and, for some countries, additional legalisation is required through the relevant embassy or consulate. The cost of legalisation is £30.00 per document. The cost of posting the documents to you/another person after legalisation is £5.50 inside the United Kingdom, £17.50 on mainland Europe and £25.00 for the rest of the world.My fees are not subject to VAT.
Payment can be made by cash, cheque made payable Alexander Keenan Notarial Services Ltd or bank transfer. Payment of my fee and disbursements is due when the document has been prepared which I may retain pending payment in full.
Occasionally unforeseen or unusual issues arise during the course of the matter which may result in a revision of my fee estimate. Examples of this could include where additional documents are required to be notarised, additional translations or legalisations are needed to meet the requirements of the receiving jurisdiction, third party fees are adjusted to reflect external factors such as fuel price changes and so on. I will notify you of any changes in the fee estimate as soon as possible.
Service Information
Each notarial matter is different and the requirements and timescales will vary according to whether the client is a private individual or a company and according to the processing times of third parties such as the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, legalisation agents, translating agencies and couriers, etc. Some of the typical key stages are likely to include:
1. Receiving and reviewing the documents to be notarised together with any instructions you may have received
2. Liaising with your legal advisors or other bodies to obtain the necessary documentation to deal with the document (e.g. information from Companies House or foreign registries, powers of attorney etc)
3. Checking the identity, capacity and authority of the person who is to sign the document
4 If a document is to be certified, checking with the issuing authorities that the document/award is genuine. In the case of academic awards, this would entail checking with the appropriate academic institutions.
5. Meeting with the signatory to verify their identity and to ascertain that they understand what they are signing and that they are doing so of their own free will and ensuring that the document is executed correctly
6. Drafting and affixing or endorsing a notarial certificate to the document
7. Arranging for the legalisation of the document as appropriate
8. Arranging for the storage of copies of all notarised documents in accordance with the requirements of the Notarial Practice Rules 2019
Redress
I am insured under a professional indemnity policy for at least £1,000,000.00.
Complaints and Regulatory Information
1. My 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
2. If you are dissatisfied about the service you have received please do not hesitate to contact me.
3. If we are unable to resolve the matter you may then complain to the Notaries Society of which I am a member, 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.
4. In that case 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 1023
Ipswich IP1 9XB Email secretary@thenotariessociety.org.uk
If you have any difficulty in making a complaint in writing please do not hesitate to contact the Notaries Society/the Faculty Office for assistance.
5. 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 me 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
Tel : 0300 555 0333 Email : enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk
Website : www.legalombudsman.org.uk
6. 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.
Exclusions and limitations of liability
The contract you make is with us, Alexander Keenan Notarial Services Limited (Company Number 10227031). You agree to pursue only us for any claim in connection with our services, and you will not bring any claim or claims whatsoever against any of our individual employees, consultants, directors or partners personally in respect of losses which you suffer or incur, howsoever arising, in connection with our services. This does not limit or exclude our liability for the acts or omissions of our employees, consultants directors or partners.
You agree that our aggregate liability towards you and any third party for claims including but not limited to claims in negligence in connection with our services howsoever arising shall be limited to £1 million in total per engagement or, if greater, the amount recoverable under our professional indemnity insurance. The aggregate liability of the firm, its employees, consultants and partners collectively shall not exceed the aggregate liability of the firm alone. The expression “howsoever arising” covers all causes giving rise to liability, whether arising by reason of non performance, delay, negligence, misrepresentation, other tort, breach of contract, breach of statutory duty or otherwise.
We shall not be liable to you to the extent that we are unable to perform our services as a result of any cause beyond our reasonable control including without limitation industrial action (other than solely on the part of our personnel), act of God, war, civil commotion, terrorism, theft, malicious damage (other than by our personnel) accident, failure or breakdown of computers, machinery, systems, extreme weather conditions, power failure or failure of telecommunications.
Rights as a consumer as defined in the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 shall not be adversely affected by these terms to the extent prohibited by those Regulations.
Confidentiality and Data Protection
We owe a duty of confidentiality to our clients. You agree, however, that we may, when required by our auditors, insurers or advisers, provide details to them of any engagement, and that we may also disclose confidential information if required to do so by law or regulation.Sometimes we ask sub-contractors or other third parties to undertake translating, typing, photocopying or other support services. In accordance with our professional rules, a copy of a notarial act or of the record of a notarial act retained by us may, upon payment of a reasonable fee, be issued upon the application of any person or authority having a proper interest in the act. Your attention is drawn to the attached Privacy Notice in relation to the General Data Protection. By signing these terms of business you agree to be bound by its terms including the warranties it contains. Our data protection policy is available on request.
Please review our privacy notice at: https://lincolnshirenotarycom.files.wordpress.com/2021/12/data-protection-notice-.pdf
Documents
We will store your file (including personal and other data provided to us) electronically or otherwise for such period of time as we judge reasonable taking into account applicable laws and regulations after which time we may destroy it. The data we collect from you may be transferred to, and stored at, a destination outside the European Economic Area (EEA). It may also be processed by persons operating outside of the EEA who work for us. If we do send your personal data outside the EEA we will take reasonable steps to ensure that the recipient implements appropriate measures to protect your information.Unless we agree otherwise, the copyright in the original materials which we create for you belongs to us. Subject to payment of our fees for that material, you are permitted to make use of those materials only for the purposes for which they are created.
Third Party Rights
Other than an employee, consultant, director or partner of Alexander Keenan Notarial Services Limited (Company Number 10227031) wishing to rely on these terms of business, no third party shall have any right to enforce or rely on any provision of the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999. The notification or consent of any third parties shall not be required in order to rescind or vary the terms of our contract with you.
Severance of terms
If any provision shall be declared to be invalid or unenforceable in any respect, the validity and enforceability of the remaining provisions shall not be impaired.
These Terms and variations
These terms supersede any earlier terms of business we may have agreed with you and, in the absence of express agreement to the contrary, will apply to the current services and all subsequent services we provide to you. Amongst these things, your continuing to instruct us to act for you will amount to acceptance of these terms.
Applicable law and jurisdiction
The contractual relationship that arises when you instruct us shall be governed by the law of England and Wales. In the event of a dispute, the courts of England and Wales shall have exclusive jurisdiction.