JGS NOTARY LIMITED
JAYNE GRIFFITHS-SCOTT NOTARY PUBLIC
TERMS OF BUSINESS
IDENTIFICATION
Notaries are required to satisfy themselves of the identity of both individuals and businesses.
For Individuals, you agree to let me to inspect suitable proof of identification which is likely to be a current passport or photocard driving license. National identity cards are also acceptable. In addition, I will ask to see proof of your residential address. This could be provided by my inspecting a recent utility bill, bank statement or other formal communication addressed to you. Exceptionally, other proof may be accepted, but I will be able to advise you of my requirements before starting work for you. Please note that I will always require sight of the original identity document.
If you instruct me on behalf of a company or organisation, I will need to establish that it exists and that the signatory has authority to act for the business. I will usually conduct my own searches in respect of UK companies and you agree to be responsible for any charges incurred in my undertaking relevant searches. I reserve the right to request additional evidence ,as appropriate for each instruction as I deem necessary. For example I may need to review the constitutional documents of a limited company and satisfy myself the board resolutions have been properly passed. I will also ask clients to confirm that there are no notifications pending at Companies House that have not yet been added to the database maintained by the Registrar of Companies for England and Wales.
FEES AND PAYMENT
Wherever appropriate I will provide a fixed fee quotation for the work you instruct me to undertake. This fee is separate to any disbursements/expenses incurred on your behalf.
Where is not possible to quote a fixed fee, then I will give you an estimate of costs, which will be based upon my hourly charge rate of £200 per hour plus Vat.
Where I travel to your business address or home by car, I charge mileage at a flat rate of 45p per mile in accordance with HMRC guidelines. Mileage will be based on AA Route planner calculations from my postcode to the postcode of the address at which I visit you. A charge will also be made in respect of travelling time.
Payment may be made by cash; or direct transfer into my nominated bank account. A secure payment link can be provided for your convenience. Please note that I do not accept cheques as a method of payment. Final documents will not be released until I am in receipt of cleared funds.
DISBURSEMENTS/EXPENSES
Disbursements and Expenses are additional charges which are incurred in respect of your matter.
Examples include Companies House searches; translators’ fees; Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office charges for Apostilles; fees charged by embassies/consulates; postage and courier charges; agents’ charges etc. This list is not exhaustive.
Payments for disbursements must be made in advance and funds must be cleared before I incur the disbursement.
THIRD PARTIES
Where you have professional advisers (for example lawyers in the receiving jurisdiction), it will often be helpful for me to be able to communicate with them. This can assist in identifying the requirements at an early stage and will often ensure that your matter is completed without delay and in the most cost-efficient manner.
It will often be necessary for you to give third parties express permission for them to deal freely with me and you agree to give this permission is requested to do so.
MY ROLE AND THE REQUIREMENTS OF MY OFFICE OF NOTARY PUBLIC
I have a responsibility to ensure that you have capacity to instruct me and that you understand the content and purpose of the transaction/document you ask me to notarise. In accordance with the requirements of my public office, I need to satisfy myself that there is no fraud, violence or duress involved and I reserve the right to carry out bankruptcy searches. Where I am not so satisfied, then I reserve the right to refuse to act or to cease acting.
Please note that a Notary’s first duty is to the transaction as a whole. This is because Notarial Acts are relied upon by clients, third parties, foreign governments and organisations, worldwide.
Unless otherwise agreed in writing, my responsibility is limited to the Notarial Act and will not extend to giving legal advice.
In cases where you wish to submit an application or paperwork yourself to the Foreign Office or embassy/consulate/High Commission yourself, I accept no responsibility for any errors or omissions made by you.
DOCUMENTS AND INSTRUCTIONS
It is usually helpful for us to speak by telephone in advance of us meeting and wherever possible, for me to have sight of the relevant documents in advance via email. You agree to cooperate in this respect.
Wherever possible, I will communicate with you and relevant third-parties by email for reasons of speed and cost effectiveness. By instructing me and giving me a valid email address, you agreed to me communicating with you and relevant third-party in this way. Where are you do not wish me to communicate with you or others by email you must confirm this in writing.
I accept no responsibility for the security of email communications and ask that you ensure that any email address you give me is appropriate. Please do not ask me to correspond with you via a work email address, unless you are certain that this is appropriate and that your privacy will not be compromised.
DECLINING TO ACT
I reserve the right to decline to act for you or to cease acting for you for example, where you do not provide me with clear and prompt instructions; do not cooperate with my request for information or documents; or if I have concerns about your capacity.
MONEY LAUNDERING AND PROCEEDS OF CRIME
Notaries are required to be vigilant in respect of possible money-laundering and criminal activity and have a legal obligation to report any reasonable suspicions or knowledge. You agree that I may make such enquiries as I consider to be necessary in order to comply with my duties and will assist by providing such documents and information as I may request. Failure to cooperate will entitle me to cease acting for you immediately
DATA PROTECTION
I may store your information and documents either electronically or in hardcopy. Copies of Notarial Acts will be retained for a minimum of 12 years and may be retained indefinitely if they are in what is known as Public Form (for example, the majority of Spanish Power of Attorney documents will be in Public Form).
I will store and process any information I have concerning you in accordance with the provisions of the Data Protection Act 1998 and I am duly registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office as a Data Controller. I may need to share information I hold concerning you to third parties including the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office, and agents/lawyers/notaries in the receiving jurisdiction.
Copies of Notarial Acts may be provided to any person with a legitimate interest in the same and your information may be shared with others as a result of inspection of my Practice.
**CONSUMER CONTRACTS (INFORMATION, CANCELLATION AND ADDITIONAL CHARGES) REGULATIONS 2013
In certain circumstances, individual clients may have a legal right to cancel the contract between us within 14 days of the start of my agreement to act for you, without incurring any charge. I will advise you if this applies to you. In those situations I am unable to start work for you until that 14-day period has expired, unless you choose of your own free will, to waive this right and asked me to start work for you immediately. If this provision applies to you, I will need to provide written confirmation of this, which you can supply via email.
JGS NOTARY LIMITED
DATA PROTECTION AND PRIVACY NOTICE
- The business of JGS NOTARY LIMITED (“Business”, “we”, “us”, “our”).
- The Business is registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (“ICO”) under number ZA129904.
- If you have any questions about this privacy notice (“Notice”), please contact us by email jayne@jaynescott.co.uk
- The Business will process your and third parties’ personal data, as further explained below, in the course of providing you with notarial and associated services[including access to our website and online features (“Services”).
- We will let you know, by posting on our website or otherwise, if we make any changes to this Notice from time to time. Your continued use of the Services after receiving notification of such changes will amount to your acknowledgement of the amended Notice.
- PLEASE NOTE: You shall and you hereby agree to indemnify the Business and its affiliates and their officers, employees, agents and subcontractors (each an “Indemnified Party”) from and against any claims, losses, demands, actions, liabilities, fines, penalties, reasonable expenses, damages and settlement amounts (including reasonable legal fees and costs) incurred by any Indemnified Party arising out of or in connection with any breach by you of the warranties included in paragraphs 8 & 9.
- What is Personal Data? “Personal data” means any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person, known as ‘data subject’, who can be identified directly or indirectly; it may include name, address, email address, phone number, IP address, location data, cookies and similar information. It may also include “special categories of personal data” such as racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, or trade union membership, and the processing of genetic data, biometric data for the purpose of uniquely identifying a data subject, data concerning health or data concerning a natural person’s sex life or sexual orientation.
- The Business may process personal data and special categories of personal data which you provide in connection with the Services about yourself and other data subjects, e.g. individuals whose details are included in any materials provided by you to the Business. The Business may obtain information about you and other data subjects from third party service providers, such as due diligence platforms. If you use our online Services, the Business may collect information about your devices including clickstream data.
- The provision of certain personal data is mandatory in order for the Business to comply with mandatory client due diligence requirements and consequently to provide the Services. You warrant on a continuous basis that such personal data is accurate, complete and up to date. Failure to comply may result in documents being rejected by the relevant certification authorities, held invalid in the destination country or other difficulty to successfully completing the Services.
- In relation to personal data of data subjects you warrant to the Business on a continuous basis that: where applicable, you are authorised to share such personal data with the Business in connection with the Services and that wherever another data subject is referred to, you have obtained the explicit and demonstrable consent from all relevant data subjects to the inclusion and use of any personal data concerning them; to the extent this is required in connection with the Services, such personal data is accurate, complete and up to date; and either you provide your explicit consent and warrant that each data subject has provided explicit consent for the transfer of personal data to foreign organisations in connection with the Services as set out at paragraph 18, or that an alternative legal gateway for such transfer (such as transfer necessary for the conclusion or performance of a contract concluded in the interest of the data subject) has been satisfied.
- How do we use your personal data? The Business will only process personal data, in accordance with applicable law, for the following purposes: responding to your queries, requests and other communications; providing the Services, including, where applicable, procuring acts from foreign organisations; enabling suppliers and service providers to carry out certain functions on behalf of the Business in order to provide the Services, including webhosting, data storage, identity verification, technical, logistical, courier or other functions, as applicable; allowing you to use features on our website, when you choose to do so; ensuring the security of the Business and preventing or detecting fraud; administering our Business, including complaints resolution, troubleshooting of our website, data analysis, testing of new features, research, statistical and survey purposes; developing and improving our Services; complying with applicable law, including Notary Practice Rules, guidelines and regulations or in response to a lawful request from a court or regulatory body. The legal basis for our processing of personal data for the purposes described above will typically include: processing necessary to fulfil a contract that we have in place with you or other data subjects, such as processing for the purposes set out in paragraphs above; your consent, such as processing for the purposes set out above; processing necessary for our or a third party’s legitimate interests, such as processing which is carried out on the basis of the legitimate interests of the Business to ensure that Services are properly provided, the security of the Business and its clients and the proper administration of the Business; and processing necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which we are subject, and any other applicable legal grounds for processing from time to time.
- Disclosure of personal data – There are circumstances where the Business may wish to disclose or is compelled to disclose your personal data to third parties. These scenarios include disclosure to: our subsidiaries or associated offices; our suppliers and service providers to facilitate the provision of the Services, including couriers, translators, IT consultants and legalisation and other handling agents, webhosting providers, identity verification partners (in order to verify your identity against public databases), consultants, for example, in order to protect the security or integrity of our business, including our databases and systems and for business continuity reasons; public authorities to carry out acts which are necessary in connection with the Services, such as the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office; foreign organisations to carry out acts which are necessary in connection with the Services, such as Embassies, Consulates and High Commissions; professional organisations exercising certain public functions in relation to the notaries profession, such as Chambers of Commerce; successor or partner legal entities, on a temporary or permanent basis, for the purposes of a joint venture, collaboration, financing, sale, merger, reorganisation, change of legal form, dissolution or similar event relating to a Business. In the case of a merger or sale, your personal data will be permanently transferred to a successor company; public authorities where we are required by law to do so; and any other third party where you have provided your consent.
- International transfer of your personal data – We may transfer your personal data to a third party in countries outside the country in which it was originally collected for further processing in accordance with the purposes set out above. In particular, your personal data may be transferred to foreign organisations such as foreign Embassies located in the UK or abroad. Such organisations will process personal data in accordance with the laws to which they are subject and international treaties over which the Business has no control.
- If the Business transfers personal data to private organisations abroad, such as subcontractors, it will, as required by applicable law, ensure that your privacy rights are adequately protected by appropriate technical, organisation, contractual or other lawful means. You may contact us for a copy of such safeguards in these circumstances.
- Retention of personal data – Your personal data will be retained for as long as is reasonably necessary for the purposes listed above or as required by the law. For example, the Notaries Practice Rules require that that notarial acts in the public form shall be preserved permanently. Records of acts not in public form shall be preserved for a minimum period of 12 years. Please contact us for further details of applicable retention periods. Personal data may for reasons of security and convenience be stored on remote data facilities but in an encrypted form.
- We may keep an anonymized form of your personal data, which will no longer refer to you, for statistical purposes without time limits, to the extent that we have a legitimate and lawful interest in doing so.
- Security of personal data – The Business will implement technical and organisational security measures in order to prevent unauthorised access to your personal data. However, please be aware that the transmission of information via the internet is never completely secure. Whilst we can do our best to keep our own systems secure, we do not have full control over all processes involved in, for example, your use of our website or sending confidential materials to us via email, and we cannot therefore guarantee the security of your information transmitted to us on the web.
- Data subject rights – Data subjects have numerous rights in relation to their personal data. For further information about your data protection rights please visit the ICO website.
- Right to make a subject access request (SAR) – Data subjects may request in writing copies of their personal data. However, compliance with such requests is subject to certain limitations and exemptions and the rights of other data subjects. Each request should make clear that a SAR is being made. You may also be required to submit a proof of your identity and payment, where applicable.
- Right to rectification – Data subjects may request that we rectify any inaccurate or incomplete personal data.
- Right to withdraw consent – Data subjects may at any time withdraw their consent to the processing of their personal data carried out by the Business on the basis of previous consent. Such withdrawal will not affect the lawfulness of processing based on previous consent.
- Right to object to processing, including automated processing and profiling – The Business does not make automated decisions. Profiling may be carried out for Business administration purposes, such as monitoring trends in user visits of our website, and in order to deliver targeted ads.The Business may use third party due diligence platforms which provide recommendations about data subjects by automated means. We will comply with any data subject’s objection to processing unless we have a compelling overriding legitimate ground for the processing, the processing is for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims or we have another lawful reason to refuse such request. We will comply with each valid opt-out request in relation to marketing communications.
- Right to erasure – Data subjects may request that we erase their personal data. We will comply, unless there is a lawful reason for not doing so. For example, there may be an overriding legitimate ground for keeping the personal data, such as, our archiving obligations which which we are obliged to comply.
- Data subjects may request that we restrict our processing of their personal data in various circumstances. We will comply, unless there is a lawful reason for not doing so, such as, a legal obligation to continue processing your personal data in a certain way.
- Right to data portability – In certain circumstances, data subjects may request the controller to provide a copy of their personal data in a structured, commonly used and machine readable format and have it transferred to another provider of the same or similar services. To the extent such right applies to the Services, we will comply with such transfer request. Please note that a transfer to another provider does not imply erasure of the data subject’s personal data which may still be required for legitimate and lawful purposes.
- Right to lodge a complaint with the supervisory authority – We suggest that data subjects contact us about any questions or complaints in relation to how we process personal data. However, each data subject has the right to contact the relevant supervisory authority directly.
JGS NOTARY LIMITED
REGULATION
My Notarial Practice is regulated through the Faculty Office of the Archbishop of Canterbury:
The Faculty Office
1, The Sanctuary
Westminster
London
SW1P 3JT
Tel: 020 7222 5381
Email: faculty.office@1thesanctuary.com
Website: http://www.facultyoffice.org.uk
If you are dissatisfied about the service you have received please do not hesitate to contact me by telephone or in writing.
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.
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, PO Box 7655 Milton Keynes MK11 9NR.
Email secretary@thenotariessociety.org.uk;
Tel : 01604 758908
If you have any difficulty making a complaint in writing, please do not hesitate to call The Faculty Office for assistance.
Finally, even if you have your complaint considered under the Complaints Procedure, you may at the end of that procedure or after a period of eight 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
PO Box 6806
Wolverhampton WV1 9WJ
Tel : 0300 555 0333
Email: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk
Website: http://www.legalombudsman.org.uk
If you decide to make a complaint to the Legal Ombudsman, you must refer your matter to the Legal Ombudsman within six months from the conclusion of the complaint process.