Document Services

Sometimes, you may need to submit a certified copy of an important document rather than the original.

You may need a certified copy of a document such as a:

If you need to use official documents abroad, you may need to get them legalised first. This is where documents are sent to the legalisation office of the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) (formerly the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO)).

Only documents issued inside the UK can be legalised by the FCDO. Documents issued outside the UK need to be legalised in the country where they were issued.

The FCDO will check the documentation they receive and, all being well, will legalise the document by attaching a document called an ‘apostille’. This will confirm to any foreign officials that the signature, stamp or seal is genuine.

We can administer this process for you by collating and checking your documents to be legalised, then submitting them to the FCDO on your behalf. Our legalisations are processed using FCDO’s standard service, which can take up to 10 working days to process, plus postage and courier time. This is in addition to our turnaround time of up to 10 working days from receipt of your original documents.

Our fee for this service will include the FCDO charge.

Our solicitors are able to countersign passport applications and photos as professional signatories.

However, we can only offer this service if you have known one of our solicitors for more than two years. If the passport application is for a child under the age of 16, then the adult who is signing on their behalf will need to have known one of our solicitors for two years.

If you’re applying with a paper form, you can either make an appointment to meet with us face to face or you can post the forms and photos for us to sign remotely.

Alternatively, if you are managing your application online, you can electronically nominate the solicitor you know at Roche Legal as your counter-signatory. The solicitor will then receive an email from HM Passport services to allow them to digitally countersign your application.

If you have been named as an attorney in a Lasting Power of Attorney and you need to start acting on the donor’s behalf, you will need to obtain at least one certified copy of the LPA.

This is because you will need to show the certified document to local authorities, hospital trusts, financial institutions and other bodies as evidence that you are legally entitled to act on behalf of the donor.

Only certain professionals are able to certify Lasting Powers of Attorney. Our solicitors are fully qualified to do this. If you would like us to certify an LPA for you, you will need to provide us with the original LPA (unless we are already storing it on your behalf).

In certain financial or legal circumstances, you may be required to provide a statutory declaration or affidavit. This is a written statement of fact that is witnessed and signed by a solicitor or other qualified professional.

This could be in order to:

Some countries require an Affidavit of Parental Consent if you wish to travel there with your child(ren) without their other parent. This type of document is usually required if one parent is planning to visit South Africa with their child(ren). An affidavit may also be required in some other circumstances, such as if a parent and child travelling together have different surnames.

We can help you to prepare, complete and correctly execute an affidavit of parental consent to use for travel. We currently only offer this service in person.

We don’t necessarily need to see both parents, but we can only sign on behalf of the parent we have seen. If the second parent cannot attend a meeting at the same time, they can make a separate appointment. Alternatively, if the other parent cannot attend a meeting with us in person due to living too far away or overseas, they will need to make their own affidavit with another solicitor.

You will need to bring an unabridged copy of each child’s birth certificate, as well as their passports. You will also need to bring identification documents for all the people who will be named in the affidavit, including children. If you are the only surviving parent, you will need to bring a death certificate for the other parent (or a certified copy of the death certificate).

Not all countries require extra documentation for you to be able to travel with your child or children without the second parent. If you have any concerns about travelling with your child in this way, the consulate or embassy of the country you are travelling to will usually be able to advise you.

ID1 forms are sometimes needed to verify your identity during a conveyancing transaction in order for your application to be lodged with the Land Registry. This might be because you are dealing with a conveyancing transaction without the help of a solicitor. It can also be required in situations such as a transfer of property or land, the discharge of a mortgage or because you want to change your personal details with the Land Registry (such as your name or address).

The Land Registry will ask for you to fill in an ID1 form, (which can be downloaded for free from the Land Registry website). Before you can submit this to the Land Registry, you will need a solicitor to check your identity and sign the ID1 form to confirm they have done this.

This is a service that we offer remotely by videocall, or in person, subject to availability.

You will need to download, complete and sign the ID1 form and forward it to us by email, together with your photo ID, before your appointment. We will then complete an ID5 form and identify you by comparing your photo with your image on the video call. Please note that we will need to take a screenshot during the call to attach to the form.

If the Land Registry have asked you to complete an ID1 form, you will need to make sure this is signed and dated within three months of your associated transaction being lodged.

A deed of name change is a legal document that allows you to state your intention to change or alter any part of your name. This could be changing your first name, changing, adding or removing any middle names, or changing your surname.

We can draw up a deed of name change on your behalf. This will display your former and new name, as well as your current address. It will then need to be formally witnessed.

You may wish to:

Many of the document services we provide are offered remotely. This includes certifying documents, countersigning passport applications, arranging for documents to be legalised and making deeds of name change.

However, there are certain legal processes that have to be followed for some services, such as making a statutory declaration or affidavit. In these cases, we will need to see you face to face to properly witness the making of the document.

If you’re unsure whether you need to meet with us in person, or if you would find it difficult to do so, please get in touch and we’ll do what we can to help.

The exact information you will need for each of the document services we provide will vary depending on the situation and the document you need us to help you with.

However, please be prepared to provide original copies of any relevant documents as well as up-to-date identification documents for each person involved.

We charge a fixed fee for each of the document services we provide. This fee will depend on the type of service you need, along with how many additional copies you require, how you are meeting with us and whether the documents need to be lodged with any official bodies such as the Supreme Court or the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office.

If we have not worked with you before, we will also need to charge a fixed fee per person in order to register you on the Roche Legal system and check your identification documents.

We endeavour to support as many people as possible with the document services we provide. Most of our services are offered remotely, which we hope makes them accessible to anyone who needs them.

Please note that if we have not worked with you before, we will need to charge a fixed fee per person in order to register you on the Roche Legal system and check your identification documents.

If you require a document service that we have not mentioned, please do get in touch to see if we can help you. In the event that we can’t, we may be able to suggest another professional who can.

We will store a digital copy of your documents and personal identification on file in case they are required for if you choose to work with us again in the future. If you would prefer for us not to store your documents in this way, please let us know.

We aim to process documents and post them back to you within 5 working days from receipt. If your document(s) is/are going to the FCDO for an apostille, please see their website for further information about how long it takes them. We process all FCDO applications using their standard service for them to be posted back to us (so that we can check them) for onward transmission to you. If your matter is urgent, please let us know straight-away. In some cases, we can ask the FCDO to courier your documents back to you directly, for an additional charge.