From 1 October 2006, Registered Migration Agents will be able to certify copies of all documents needed in connection with applications for Australian visas. This new rule will apply regardless of which country the agent is in and regardless of which country the applicant is in.
I think this change is both welcome and long overdue. Solicitors don't want to certify documents - it is a horrendously un-profitable activity.
I don't know whether the agents within the UK will be confined to the Australian rule that JPs etc who certify documents out there are NOT permitted to charge for so doing. This change doesn't affect English Law & convention, so I don't see why the Australian rule shouldn't apply.
Horrendously unprofitable?! For us, yes, but not for the solicitors! It must be amongst the fastest and easiest ten-second-transaction that they have!
Good that they are authorising other people to do it though.
Bloody hell - I rang a few local ones and it ranged from £5 - £10 PER DOCUMENT! Luckily we managed to get friends/contacts to do most of ours, so only had to pay for a few - but still felt like it was a complete rip-off, as it took them literally under a minute to do.
I can understand that they'd be cross doing a whole stack for 50p each, or less (But isn't that slightly their own fault for charging so little?!).
Either way, it has to be a good thing that there are more options now.
The solicitor we used for our Stat Decs charged us £5 per signature, which totalled £20. Out of curiosity I asked how much she'd charge to sign the whole lot of papers for our TRA (112 in total) and she said it was £5 per signature (i.e. page) so that would have cost us £560! :shock:
Needless to say, we used a friend who's a JP and he did it for nothing but a few pints :D
