SH Notaries is the trading name of Shujaat Husain, Notary Public who is a registered Notary Public lawyer, with registered main office at Unit 4 Palace  Court, 250 Finchley Road, London, NW3 6DN. His details can be found on the central register for Notary Public lawyers in England & Wales www.facultyoffice.org.uk.  Shujaat’s also a Solicitor Consultant at H&S Solicitors under solicitor roll number 189015.

H&S Solicitors and SH Notaries are two distinct legal entities, with the Solicitor practice being authorised and regulated by the Solicitor Regulation Authority under number  567729 with registered office at First Floor, 239 Kensington High Street, London, W8 6SN and the notary profession being regulated by The Archbishop of Canterbury’s Faculty Office www.facultyoffice.org.uk

Scope

These terms of business will govern the agreement between SH Notaries and you, the client.

Governing law and jurisdiction

These terms shall be governed by and construed in accordance with English law and the English Courts shall have exclusive jurisdiction.

Client Instructions & Timetable

Your initial instructions will form the basis of the work we expect to carry out for you. Please give full details at the outset and any special instructions if received from a foreign jurisdiction or receiving party. If a third party is acting on your behalf please ensure we are aware of this arrangement. We will only be able to give an accurate quote and timescale of works based on the information we receive from you or your agent. Inaccurate information or subsequent changes may result in increased fees and delays.

We aim to deal with your matter as quickly as circumstances allow, and you will receive a review of progress as part of our services. At certain times progress will depend upon the degree of co-operation from other third parties involved – in such cases we cannot accept any liability arising from failure to meet any target date(s) or to complete any part of your work within a proposed timescale, unless the failure is directly and exclusively caused by unreasonable delay on our part in providing our services.

Communications

In the majority of cases we will communicate messages and documents to you and to others by electronic mail (email). Please be aware that email is not entirely risk free and carries with it the possibility (among other things) of corruption, inadvertent misdirection, non-delivery of confidential material, inadvertent deletion or unauthorised access. We cannot accept any liability arising from any of the aforementioned circumstances.

Unless notified to the contrary we will regard your acceptance of these terms of business as including your agreement to the use of email as a suitable means of communication. Please be aware that your file may not necessarily contain a copy of every email sent or received as it may be impractical and time-consuming for us to retain every bit of communication between us.

Fees and disbursements

We will provide you with an estimate of our fees before commencement of any work. The fees are calculated based on the information we receive from you or your agent. In the case of inaccurate information having been provided, we reserve the right to vary the fees and to notify you of any such change. We will do this at the earliest possible opportunity

There is VAT applicable to the fees that we charge.

You will always be notified of any disbursements in addition to my fees. Such disbursements may include incidental costs such as:

• Company search fees,
• Registry search fees,
• Courier charges,
• Apostille fees and Consulate’s fees,
• Bank fees and charges for BACS and CHAPS transfers,

We will endeavour to give an estimate of any predicted disbursements at the onset based on your initial instructions. You will always be kept informed of any subsequent disbursements that may arise at the earliest opportunity.

Payment of invoices and payments on account

You will be issued with an invoice for the work we carry out for you. All invoices must be paid within 7 working days of the date of the invoice. Should an invoice not be paid within this time we reserve the right to suspend any further work on the matter and to retain any papers, title deeds or documents until full payment has been made. You will also be charged interest at the rate of 5% on the balance owing from the expiry of the 7 days.

Our fees includes all work carried out on your behalf as well as any disbursements incurred.

Please note that where your matter requires the payment of any disbursements on your behalf (especially where there are deadlines to be met) – these required funds must be provided in advance of any work being carried out. Failure to do so may result in delay to the timescale initially quoted.

Where a third party is to be responsible for the payment of some or all of our fees we will act on the agreement that you, the client, will meet any liability of unpaid fees by the due date for payment.

Client satisfaction & Complaints Procedure

We aim to fully satisfy your requirements and expectations based on the instructions received by us. You are entitled to expect a fully professional and efficient standard of work on our part. In order to fulfil this expectation it is essential that we are kept aware of any concerns that you have about our work or about the progress of your matter. Please raise any such concerns promptly to allow us to address them as soon as possible. We welcome any suggestions to help improve our services.

Any complaint you may have in relation to our services, which may include a complaint about an invoice, should be raised in the first instance with the notary concerned who will attempt to resolve the issue to the mutual satisfaction of both parties.

Should such a resolution prove unachievable, your complaint may be referred to the Faculty Office of the Archbishop of Canterbury situated at 1 The Sanctuary, Westminster, London, SW1P 3JT.

If you remain unsatisfied with the outcome at that stage, you may take the matter further to the Legal Ombudsman at PO Box 6806, Wolverhampton WV1 9WJ.

Confidentiality and data protection

We will maintain professional and legal obligations of confidentiality in relation to the work we undertake for you and use the information you provide (including personal data) primarily for the provision of our services to you, but also for related purposes including creating and maintaining notarial records, issuing invoices, collecting payments and debts, analysis for the purposes of practice management, statutory returns, insurance, legal and regulatory compliance. In some instances we may be required to make disclosures of your confidential information such as:

• for the purpose of acting for you including disclosures to third parties involved in the work we undertake for you;
• as required by law or by any regulatory authority to which we are subject;
• for the purposes of complying with our obligations under anti-money laundering or counter terrorist financing legislation for the time being in force;
• to our auditors for the purposes of the audit of my accounts and
• to our professional indemnity insurers (if it becomes necessary under the terms of the concerned notary’s professional indemnity insurance to notify circumstances which may give rise to a claim against him/her). This may include communications which would ordinarily be protected by legal professional privilege.

Any work that is outsourced may include sensitive personal data as defined in the Data Protection Act 1998.

Where your matter requires the use of third parties, including third parties located abroad, to perform certain support services (such as word processing, copying, printing, translation) we will take appropriate measures to maintain client confidentiality by ensuring that a Confidentiality Agreement and a Data Processor Agreement is executed with those third parties to enable us to comply with the provisions of the Data Protection Act 1998.

Notice of right to cancel

If the Consumer Contract (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges (Regulations 2013) applies to you, you have the right to cancel the contract within 14 days. This must be in writing and there is no requirement for you to give any reason. The 14 days cancellation period starts from the day after you agree to go ahead with our services. Your right to cancel under these regulations is in addition to and not in substitution for your general right to withdraw your instructions at any time.

You will lose the right to cancel if your work is completed within the aforementioned 14 days period.