Notaries Public in Scotland

A Notary Public in Scotland is nowadays always a solicitor. They are nowadays appointed by the Law Society of Scotland, but in ancient days this was not the case. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, after the feudal system came to Scotland, ownership of land began to be transferred from one person to another (whereas previously it was always given back to the lord or baron who gave it to you in the first place). In those days very few people could read and write, and the process of selling land consisted of the seller  handing over a clod of earth and a stone (symbols for the land being sold) to the buyer. The only way to obtain a written record of hte transaction was to ask the local notary to come along and write down a record of the transaction in a "instrument of seizing" which later became "an instrument of sasine". The early land register in Scotland was thus called the "Register of Sasines".

Since then Notaries have traditionally become the "verifiers" of documents, and the most common thing Notaries do now is countersign affadavits, mostly in matrimonial cases. If a witness signs a document before a Notary (who should really get the witness to swear that what they sign is the truth), and the notary countersigns it, it is the equivalent of the witness giving evidence in the witness box.

Most Notaries charge for countersigning documents, but I don't, as a matter of principle.