Oh my goodness - what a total farce!

Went to the local magistrate's court today to get documents certified (thanks for all the advice by the way). Had booked an appointment with the local magistrate's court. They had already failed to inspire us when we asked how much it would cost - they told us £8 per signature. I explained that I had been told it was a lot less, "Oh, it must depend on the clerk then"

Anyway, Andy turned up with all the documents to be told it was £25 per signature and the guy had no idea what he was doing. Needless to say Andy walked away fuming.

We rang a notary who wanted £180 per hour ("It should take about 2 hours and I can't certify your birth certificate or marraige certificate as you need to apply to the original registry for those copies"). Agggghhhhhh! Why is this so difficult?!?!?!

Feel a bit better now I've let off steam. I've spent the day at the zoo with 60 kids whilst Andy dealt with the monkeys!

Grrrrr :angry:

Try and contact a Justice of the Peace - they should do it either free of charge or else for a donation to charity. Think there should be a list at the post office or town hall.

HTH

Lea

:o No wonder you were frustrated! It is a pain getting docs certified I must admit.

Can you try a different Magistrates Court? I rang my local Magistrates Court next door to where I work and was told the £8 per signature story. I contacted a different Magistrates Court near to where I live (which is in a different county) and was told to come along before court started at 10 and they would sign all my copies. I asked the price and was told 'Oh we don't charge anything'. I was round to that courthouse on the next available day. :dance:

Karen

Try phoning around some solicitors....we had loads of documents done and it cost us $10 ( just noticed no pound sign on my new computer.. :rolleyes: ) and a few cream buns .... :D

so shop around....


Corker

Hi

I had the same problem :( (had a box file fully of supporting documentation for a spouses visa) no Solicitor would do it. My problem was the amount of documents no solicitor wanted to do it. :angry: So in the end contacted Law Society who gave me a list of Solicitors which included the one who refused me.

In the end I found a Solicitor who wanted to help :D and would do it and charge an hourly rate plus vat if I helped him by stamping photocopies. The total cost was £330 and took about 2 hours.

But it paid off and I was granted my visa :sign60: on 19th October and leave for oz on 2nd Jan.

Sandra :bouncy:

We had trouble getting our certified as well, lots of conflicting evidence, some Solicitors didn't even want to know.

In the end we went to the local council office and got a JP to do the lot for free :)

I just mentioned its what I pay my council tax for ...

45 docs in all for our TRA and another 20 for main visa App.

We were quite lucky that we have used the same solicitor over the past 9 years, and it helps that my oh has done some joinery work for him ,so he did all of our documents [about 50 of them] for 40 quid, so i would have a good scout round there is some not too greedy ones out there im sure.
good luck, Hayls :sign03:

Stop.... don't pay for them to be notorised, it is much more expensive and totally unnecessary as my agent told us. We had them signed as actual copys by a solicitor, my main advise would be to make sure you have EVERYTHING in one go, I kept forgetting things and ended up going three times!! The first time he signed about 15 certs. including photo copies of birth certs, marriage cert etc. and said I can't charge you quoted price ( forgotten what it was now) charged me about half, it only took about 15 mins tops, including chatting about what they were for!! Also as Lea said you can get JP to do for free sometimes, wish I had done that now, it is frustrating but satisfying when you get it back!! ;)
Good luck
Claire

:) Hi

Our local magistrates staff seemed very vague and unable to give an appointment time. I was told to just call down and felt I was being fobbed off as thet didnt know what I was talking about.
As the local magistrates court is not a very pleasant place to hang around in I just went through the yellow pages and called a few local solicitors. A couple didnt want to know or to charge silly money. Eventually I got in touch with one who quoted me a couple of pounds a copy but seemed to round it down when I went in as it took him such a short amount of time. I had photocopied the documents first and obviously taken the original with me. He is only signing to say it is a true copy after all - its not rocket science! You need to make sure they stamp their contact details on there as well.

Best of luck

Jayne

We were lucky in that a friend our ours has a sister who is a JP.

She was more than happy to do it and as said above they can't charge.

We gave her a couple of bottles of wine and I think she appreciated that.


Graham

We phoned around local solicitors and haggled for cash :D When we done our TRA we had 4 stat decs and 60 sheets to be certified which cost us £50 (£5 each for stat decs and 50p per sheet for signature and stamp).

We went back for the rest of the bits for the visa and he only charged the 50p per sheet again so another 30 sheets cost £15 plus a drink :D

It does pay to ring around as we were quoted silly prices too - up to £7 per signature. We tried local magistrate but really long waiting list - probably due to the prices most solicitors were charging :sign68:

Lisa

We had our first round of docs done by our migration agent in aus (who is a JP), so cost us just the courier charge (on top of the agent fee for the visa of course...). Was straightforward, and something to bear in mind when selecting an agent (if that's the way you go). Was slightly nerve-wracking for the week the originals were in the postal system, but turned out ok.

Have since found out (when we had copies certified for our police checks) that they could be done by the desk clerk at the police station. For us that meant the only challenge was finding a police station that was ever open... ;) Seriously though, wish we'd known it before. Went to the main station in the next town which is open all hours, had the copies certified there and then and for free. Simple.

we had our bank manager do our 'certifying', which was ideal as i worked for the bank.
it didn't cost a bean!! :bouncy:
we've been out here for a year now on a 136 so the bank managers cetification must have been acceptable.

As of October 1, 2006 all registered Migration Agents can now certify your documents.

http://www.immi.gov.au/legislation/amendme...c01102006_4.htm

So make them work for the fee your paying them for the visa application, that is of course if you are using an agent to prepare your application.

Jet :)

We had 277 pages of stuff to be certified. The solicitor who handled our house sale did it for us and charged £80 cash.

I took all the stuff to the office and me and his receptionist stamped all the copies and he took it all home overnight and signed it all and I picked it up the next day.

I then found out I could have gone to Court and got it done for free, though I would have liked to have seen their faces when I handed over the pile of papers.

Jo

£330 :o ......sorry did you put an extra 0 in there? :blink: ........... £330 no really your joking :rolleyes: ........Yes you have to be joking :( ...........God I hope your joking :sign03: .

Mine did all my TRA documents for £40, and i still winched when i paid that.

Hi i just called my accountant and asked him if he could certify a few documents for me, he said no problem but his face dropped when i arrived at his office with around 80 pages not only to be certified but to be copied as well. His only concern was that he needed to see all of the originals that needed to be certified.
And sorry if you wish to use an accountant he must be a certified accountant.
All he charged me was a £12.00 bottle of port so i was well happy.
All the best and good luck with your certifying paul +kim :dance:

I was in the RAF my boss signed them for me. If you know an Officer in one of Her Majesty’s Armed forces do it that way, after all they can uphold the law in our country.

Nick

Hi,
I know some people before have said it cant be done/shouldnt be done, but our friend police officer did all of ours for our TRA and we passed 1st time doing it on our own. Hes done the certifying for the visa docs too, hopefully DIMIA will accept them, if not, my coach is a bank manager so i will have to convince him to do them!
Police officers cannot accept payment, its just finding one with the time to do it...also vicars can certify copies too, or at least they did in March of this year, (our friends-who have their visa now).
Kat xxx

I can't believe the prices that people have paid to have their docs certified, some real sharks out there!!!

We paid our local solicitor about £20 for the lot.

We went to one solicitor who didn't know what he was doing and we wasted £5 on him. Magistrates court were confused about the whole thing and not much good either. Found a solicitor who did a proper job for £5 - will use him again!

Having been warned that the AIM assessment was really difficult to pass, I gathered a colossal file of documentation. This, along with all the rest of the stuff needed for the visa application, was certified at a solicitors in Milton Keynes for £25. They even re-photocopied some of the documents in colour (marriage and birth certificates etc) as they didn't think the ones I'd taken with me were of good enough quality. I felt so embarrassed by the amount I asked them to do! Great service - made what I'd considered to be a tricky part of the process totally painless!

Jim :dance:

No I wasnt joking, £330 :( and I helped him, must have been about 400 documents though and then the agent didnt use all of them. Before copying them i sent her a list of the documents and she didnt say she didnt need them.

But it needed to be done quick so no time to look around because flights had been booked for Jan and needed Visas ASAP. Solicitors were quoting between £10-20 per copy, so he sounded cheap at the time, but seems in hindsight I could have got it done cheaper.

All I can say is that I got my passports back today :sign60: and have my Visas in them. All ready for 2 Jan. :bouncy: So all worth while, I think.

Sandra

We found that our local JP wanted £8 per doc even though we had been told that they are not allowed to charge you...yeh right!!!!
Rang around and have found a solicitor who is willing to do it for £1 per doc..... although another one wanted £10 per doc!!!!! C x

HI
Yes our magistrate was a little puzzled but signed everything for £8 it took a few hours of waiting but they signed them all in 15 mins.
The horrible part was being in a courthouse surrounded by druggies and petty theives YUK!!!

The funny part was when i had to swear on the bible " I swear to tell the truth etc" It was dead funny as my little girl was running around the courtroom saying mummy why have they got our passports

Hi

We found that if you ask for things to be notorised (or that is what they think you want) then the prices are very high. However, if you say that all you want is for them to take a photocopy, stamp and sign it to say that it is a true copy of the original then if should only be about £5 per document. It is worth ringing around a few places as we found that the prices varied.

Joge