Know How about Notary Public

What is a Notary public?

A Notary Public is a public office in common law legal system where a public officer known as “Notary” is appointed by Government. Generally, the officer deals with non-contentious issues concerned with estates, deeds, powers-of-attorney, and foreign and international business etc. Often we need a notary public to execute a binding legal process or just to make our instrument (legal document) more strong in the eye of law.

Notary Public in Bangladesh

In Bangladesh “Notary Public” is governed by, The Notaries Ordinance,1961. The government of Bangladesh may appoint any legal practitioners or other persons as a Notary. (under section 3 of the Act) Then the government register him as a Notary Public with all his details (u/s.4)

Fees

As per law, a notorian is required to have an office or workplace of his own. The government has set the fee for notary public related works; for attestation, it is 10 taka and for stamped affidavit or contractual agreements it is 25 taka but in reality the costs can be different, especially when you need to draft your document by an advocate then proofread and print the cost at Dhaka Judge Court could be 500 taka to 1000 Taka or even more.

Following are the main job of a Notary Public; attestation of documents like land registration documents, promissory notes, bills of exchange, bonds, translated documents or IDs, buying of cars, issuing of divorce letters, character certificate, certificates of academic qualification, death certificates, birth certificates, application for citizenship in other countries and so on.

The Job of Notary Public

Under Section 8 the job of notary public is well described as follows:

8. (1) A notary may do all or any of the following acts by virtue of his office, namely:- 
(a) verify, authenticate, certify or attest the execution of any instrument;
(b) present any promissory note, hundi or bill of exchange for acceptance or payment or demand better security;
(c) note or protest the dishonour by non-acceptance or non- payment of any promissory note, hundi or bill of exchange or protest for better security or prepare acts of honour under the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881, or serve notice of such note or protest;
(d) note and draw up ship’s protest, boat’s protest or protest relating to demurrage and other commercial matters;
(e) administer oath to, or take affidavit from, any person;
(f) prepare bottomry and respondantia bonds, charter parties and other mercantile documents;
(g) prepare, attest or authenticate any instrument intended to take effect in any country or place outside Bangladesh in such form and language as may conform to the law of the place where such deed is intended to operate;
(h) translate, and verify the translation of, any document from one language into another;
(i) any other act which may be prescribed.

(2) No act specified in sub-section (1) shall be deemed to be a notarial act except when it is done by a notary under his signature and official seal.

Keynotes before you go to a “Notary”

Attestation is a declaration by a witness that an instrument has been executed in his/her presence according to the legal procedure and the sign and seal (if any) verifies his presence in such procedure.
So in the matter of attestation before notary (known as Notary Public) the person whose document is the subject matter and the witness must be present before the Notary.
It is also important to check the instrument with the help of an advocate to avoid further hassle. So it is advised to deal the documents with a help of an expert person.