What does a Notary do in England And Wales?

A Notary prepares Notarial Acts, including Authentic Acts, mainly being documents executed in England and Wales for use everywhere in the world.  This includes drafting, reviewing and explanation of legal documents for use outside the UK.

There are two basic types of Notarial Act; those in private form and those in public form, which are Authentic Acts/Instruments.

The private form is when a Notary annexes a Notarial Certificate by way of authentification of a document and its contents thus converting it into a Notarial Act.

A public form is an Authentic Act/Instrument drafted by the Notary, which will include verification of identity, legal capacity and understanding of the document and awareness of the contents, confirming authority to enter into the transaction, e.g. in the case of a corporate body and also authenticating the contents after verifying the same.

Notaries are authorised and empowered to carry out and to carry out all types of legal work carried out by solicitors, other than contentious work.  This is a similar situation to that of the Notary in Civil Law jurisdictions.  Accordingly, Notaries deal with conveyancing, probate and Wills and all other types of non-contentious commercial and private legal work.

The role of Notaries in helping Business and Citizens

Notaries have had their Notarial Acts recognised worldwide for centuries and this, indeed, has permitted citizens and businesses to circulate freely. In this way, Notaries facilitate commerce and the life for the ordinary citizen as Notarial Acts enable them to go about their daily lives and business freely at a reasonable cost and without undue delay.