Regulatory Information

Notaries are regulated by the Faculty Office of the Archbishop of Canterbury under the direction of the Master of the Faculties. Though a Notary Public in England and Wales is  appointed for life, Notaries are  required to apply for and renew their Practicing Certificates annually. Our Practicing details are available on the Faculty Office’s website. Lakshmy Mridula Notary Public is also a member of the Notaries Society.

Business hours

I am normally open between 9.00 am and 6.00 pm from Monday to Friday. I am able to arrange meetings outside of these hours, and on weekends with prior appointments.

My responsibilities

I will:

• treat you fairly and with respect;
• communicate with you in plain language;
• review your matter regularly;
• advise you of any reasonably foreseeable circumstances and risks that could affect the outcome of your matter

Your responsibilities

You will:

• provide us with clear, timely and accurate instructions
• provide all documentation and information that I reasonably request in a timely manner, and
• safeguard any documents that may be required for your matter, including documents that you may have to disclose to another party.
• seek advice from foreign jurisdiction, if necessary.

Identification:

You have to present at the time of your appointment ,your original current passport or, UK driver’s licence with a picture or UK Biometric Resident Permit  Card(BRP) or UK national identity card as proof of identity. If you are a non-British passport holder, you must bring your UK Visa or proof settlement status in the UK.

In addition, you must supply proof of address in the form of a utility bill, credit card, bank statement, or council tax bill. The proof of address must be current and should not be older than three months.

Professional Indemnity Insurance

My maximum aggregate liability to you in this matter will be £1 million including interest and costs unless I expressly state a different figure in our letter confirming your instructions. If you wish to discuss a variation of this limit, please contact the person dealing with your matter. Agreeing a higher limit on our liability may result in us seeking an increase in our charges for handling your matter.

I will not be liable for:

• losses that were not foreseeable to you and us when this contract was formed
• losses not caused by any breach on my part
• business losses, including losses sustained by any individual not acting for purposes of their trade, business, craft or profession

Regulated services

Lakshmy Mridula Notary Public is the trading name of LM NOTARY PUBLIC LIMITED, Companies House Registration Number 13348624, authorised and regulated by the Office of the Archbishop of Canterbury at The Faculty Office of the Archbishop of Canterbury, 1 The Sanctuary, Westminster, London, SW1P 3JT

Professional indemnity insurance

I have professional indemnity insurance giving cover for claims against the firm, fully complying regulatory obligations of a Notary Public. Details of this insurance, including contact details of our insurer and the territorial coverage of the policy, can be inspected at my office or made available on request.

To comply with our regulatory obligations as a Notary Public and the terms of our professional indemnity insurance, I may disclose relevant documents and information to insurers, brokers and insurance advisers on a confidential basis. This could include details of any circumstances arising from our work for you that might give rise to a claim against us. Unless you notify us to the contrary, you agree to such disclosure by us even if the documents and information in question are confidential and/or subject to legal professional privilege.

Storage and retrieval of files

After completing the work, I will be entitled to keep your file for 12 years and public documents will be stored permanently.

If I retrieve your file from storage, I may charge you for:

• time spent retrieving the electronic OR paper and electronic file and producing it to you
• reading, correspondence, or other work necessary to comply with your instructions in relation to the retrieved file
• providing additional copies of any documents

External auditing and due diligence

External firms or organisations may conduct audit or quality checks on our practice from time to time. They may wish to audit or quality check your file and related papers for this purpose. It is a specific requirement imposed by us that these external firms or organisations fully maintain confidentiality in relation to any files and papers which are audited or quality checked.

Your files may also be reviewed in a due diligence exercise relating to the sale or transfer of all or part of our business, the acquisition of another business by us or the acquisition of new business If you do not wish your file to be used in this way, please let us know as soon as possible.

Terminating your instructions

You may end your instructions at any time by giving us notice in writing. I can keep all your papers and documents while our charges or disbursements are outstanding.

I can only decide to stop acting for you with good reason and I must give you reasonable notice.

If you or I decide that I should stop acting for you, you are liable to pay our charges up until that point. These are calculated on our agreement with you at the time of confirming your instructions.

Data Protection and Privacy Policy

I use your personal data primarily to provide legal services to you, but also for related purposes:

• conducting checks to identify you, verify your identity and screen for financial or other sanctions
• gathering and providing information required by or relating to audits, enquiries and investigations by regulatory bodies
• complying with professional, legal and regulatory obligations that apply to our business
• ensuring practice policies are adhered to, eg policies covering security and internet use
• operational reasons, such as improving efficiency, training and quality control
• ensuring the confidentiality of commercially sensitive information
• statistical analysis to help us manage our practice
• updating and enhancing client records
• preventing unauthorised access and modifications to systems
• preparing and filing statutory returns
• ensuring safe working practices, and monitoring and managing staff absences and staff access to systems and facilities
• staff administration and assessments, monitoring staff conduct, and disciplinary matters

Our use of your personal data is subject to your instructions, the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), other relevant UK and EU legislation and our professional duty of confidentiality.

Lakshmy Mridula is a data controller for the purpose of the GDPR and other relevant data protection legislation.

Promotional communications

I may use your personal data to send you updates (by email, text, telephone or post) about legal developments that might be of interest to you and/or information about our services, including exclusive offers, promotions or new services or seasonal greetings. You have the right to opt out of receiving promotional communications at any time, by:

• contacting us by an email

Prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing

I am required by law to confirm satisfactory evidence of the identity of our clients and, sometimes, people related to them. This is because Notary Public  who deals with money and property on behalf of their clients can be used by criminals wanting to launder money.

To comply with the law, I need evidence of your identity as soon as possible. This is explained in our letter confirming your instructions. Any personal data I receive from you for the purpose of preventing money laundering or terrorist financing will be used only for that purpose or:

• with your consent, or
• as permitted by or under another enactment

I am professionally and legally obliged to keep your affairs confidential. However, a Notary Public may be required by statute to make a disclosure to the National Crime Agency where they know or suspect that a transaction may involve money laundering or terrorist financing. If I make a disclosure in relation to your matter, I may not be able to tell you that a disclosure has been made. I may have to stop working on your matter for a period of time and may not be able to tell you why.

Subject to section ‘Limit of liability’ above, I shall not be liable for any loss arising from or connected with our compliance with any statutory obligation which I may have, or reasonable belief I may have, to report matters to the relevant authorities under the provisions of the money laundering and/or terrorist financing legislation.

Confidentiality

The information and documentation you provide us is confidential and subject to legal professional privilege unless:

• stated otherwise in this document, our letter confirming your instructions or data protection law, eg in relation to prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing, or
• I advise you otherwise during the course of your matter

I cannot absolutely guarantee the security of information communicated by email or mobile phone. Unless I hear from you to the contrary, I will assume that you consent for us to use these methods of communication.

Receiving and paying funds

My policy is to only accept cash up to £350.00. If you try to avoid this policy by depositing cash directly with our bank, we may decide to charge you for any additional checks I decide are necessary to prove the source of the funds. Where I have to pay money to you, it will be paid by a bank transfer.

Please be aware that I do not notify changes to important business information, such as bank account details, by email.

My bill

I will wherever possible provide you with a fixed fee for my work in advance of our appointment. Where this is not possible the fees will be calculated by reference to all relevant matters including the time needed to carry out the work, the value and importance of the matter, its complexity and the urgency.

The minimum fee payable is £50 + VAT.

Fees are payable in advance and no later than at the appointment. I reserve the right to retain any documents until I have been paid the full amount of any fees. The fees will need to include payment for notarial works, any preparatory and drafting work, correspondence, meetings and attendances, travel, administration, record keeping and any other relevant matters. If your instructions are terminated at any time and for any reason, fees will be payable for all work undertaken up to the time of such termination.  

Payments to third parties

If there are fees to pay to third parties and you request me to deal with these on your behalf, you will need to pay me the relevant amounts in advance. This might include, for example, the fee payable for legalisation or to obtain an apostille; if I use an agent or incur other costs in relation to these services, you will be responsible for those amounts also.

Complaints

If you are dissatisfied with the service provided, please raise this with the Notary. If you remain dissatisfied, please contact The Notaries Society of England and Wales 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 in making a complaint in writing, please do not hesitate to call the Notaries Society/the Faculty Office for assistance.

If you are still not satisfied with handling of your complaint, you can ask the Legal Ombudsman to consider the complaint. The Legal Ombudsman’s contact details are:

• PO Box 6806, Wolverhampton, WV1 9WJ
• telephone 0300 555 0333
• enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk
• www.legalombudsman.org.uk

Normally, you will need to bring a complaint to the Legal Ombudsman within six months of receiving a final written response from us about your complaint, or within six years of the occurrence of the act or omission about which you are complaining (or if outside of this period, within three years of when you should reasonably have been aware of it). Generally, the Legal Ombudsman deals with complaints relating to acts or omissions that happened after 5 October 2010.

The Legal Ombudsman deals with complaints by consumers and very small businesses. This means some clients may not have the right to complain to the Legal Ombudsman, eg charities or clubs with an annual income of more than £1m, trustees of trusts with asset value of more than £1m and most businesses (unless they are defined as micro-enterprises). This does not prevent you from making a complaint directly to us about the service you have received or about the bill.

Equality and diversity

I am committed to promoting equality and diversity in all our dealings with clients, third parties and employees. Please contact us if you would like a copy of our equality and diversity policy

Applicable law

Any dispute or legal issue arising from our Terms of Business will be determined by the law of England and Wales and considered exclusively by the English and Welsh courts.

Future instructions

Unless otherwise agreed, these Terms of Business will apply to all future instructions you give us on this or any other matter.

Lakshmy Mridula

Notary Public