Scottish notaries working in England and Wales - we need your input

We’re continuing to argue for revision of the restrictions in the Legal Services Act 2007 which prevent Scottish notaries working in England from performing notarial services. Our argument will be more persuasive if we have quality evidence which shows the extent of the problem. We have requested information before about how the restrictions work. However, we need more evidence to show clearly the effect of the restrictions on clients in terms of additional cost and inconvenience.

We would be grateful if you would email Chantel Gaber, Head of Member Services for England and Wales, by 10 August 2016 with your experience of the following:

• An example/examples of circumstances where you as a Scottish solicitor/notary have had to pass on notarial work to an English notary and to what that related.
• How many times does this occur in any given year?
• The kind of clients affected by this and the impact on these clients arising from this restriction.
• The cost to clients of using an English notary and what you as a Scottish notary would charge for analogous work.
• For Scottish solicitors working in-house in England and Wales, any examples of when your organisation had to outsource notarial work to an English notary and the impact/cost implications of this.

Any feedback we receive will be anonymised before being shared.