Terms of service

1. What we do

BondSeal takes documents to the offices that notarise, certify, authenticate or legalise them, on your behalf. Those offices include notaries public, commissioners for oaths, registries, ministries, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and embassies and high commissions. We work from Abuja, and we return the finished documents to you by courier or for collection.

We act as your agent for lodging and collecting documents. We are not a notary, a government office or a law firm, and our work does not involve legal representation.

2. We do not give legal advice

We can tell you which offices a document usually has to pass through and what they usually ask for. We cannot tell you whether a document is legally sufficient for your purpose, whether it will be accepted abroad, or how the law applies to your situation. For that, speak to a lawyer. This applies equally to our AI assistant, which is clearly labelled and refers anything of this kind to a person.

3. Things that cannot be done by proxy

Some steps require you in person, and we cannot perform them for you. In particular, an affidavit or sworn declaration must be sworn by the deponent in front of a commissioner for oaths or notary. Under section 17(2) of the Cybercrimes (Prohibition, Prevention, etc.) Act 2015, an electronic signature is not valid for affidavits and other judicial documents, so we do not offer electronic signing for them. Where a step needs you in person, we will tell you.

4. Your account

• You must be 18 or over, and the information you give us must be true and kept up to date.
• An account is for one person. Keep your password to yourself, or keep your Google account secure if you sign in with Google. You are responsible for what is done through your account.
• Tell us straight away at contact@bondseal.ng if you think someone else has used your account.

5. Your documents and your promises

When you send us a document, you confirm that:

• it is genuine, and you are entitled to have it processed, or have the permission of the person it concerns;
• everything you tell us about it is accurate; and
• you want it processed for a lawful purpose.

We may refuse or stop work on any request we reasonably believe involves a forged, altered or unlawfully obtained document, or is intended for an unlawful purpose. Where the law requires, we will report it.

6. How a request proceeds

1. You submit your request and upload your documents.
2. We review them and send you an itemised quote.
3. You pay the quote.
4. You sign an authorisation appointing us to act for you. We do not begin lodging your documents until this is signed.
5. We take the documents through each office on their route, and you can follow every step on your dashboard.
6. We check the returned documents against what you sent, and then arrange their return.

7. Fees and payment

• Every quote is itemised. It shows our fees separately from the official fees charged by each office, which we pay on your behalf. Official fees are often charged per copy.
• Once you have paid, your quote is fixed. We will not raise it for the work it covers.
• Delivery is charged separately, once your documents have passed our final check and we know where they are going. Delivery is not part of the original quote.
• If an office changes its fee, or asks for something that was not foreseeable when we quoted, we will tell you and ask before we incur any extra cost. We will never go ahead without your agreement.
• All amounts are in Nigerian naira unless we agree otherwise.

8. Cancellations and refunds

• If you cancel before any document has been lodged at an office, we refund what you paid in full.
• After lodging has begun, we refund official fees not yet paid over to an office, and our fees for any stage we have not started. Official fees already paid to an office are that office’s to refund, not ours. We will help you ask for them back if the office allows it.
• Refunds go back by the method you paid with, or by bank transfer.

9. Timing

Any timescale we mention is an estimate. The offices we deal with set their own hours, queues and requirements, and they can close or change them without notice. We will keep your dashboard up to date and tell you promptly about any delay. However, we cannot guarantee a completion date and are not responsible for delays those offices cause.

10. Decisions made by offices

Whether a document is notarised, certified, authenticated or legalised is decided by the office concerned, not by us. If an office refuses a document or asks for something more, we will tell you what it said and what your options are. Our fees for work already done remain payable even if an office refuses the document for a reason outside our control, such as a defect in the document itself.

11. Delivery and collection

• Give us an address and phone number the courier can use. We are not responsible for a delay or loss caused by incorrect details.
• Once the courier has delivered your documents to the address you gave, they are in your hands.
• If you choose to collect in person and do not collect within 90 days of our telling you they are ready, we will contact you. We may charge a reasonable fee for continued safekeeping.

12. Our responsibility to you

We will do the work with reasonable care and skill. We are responsible for loss or damage to your documents while they are in our hands, and for loss we cause by failing to meet these terms.

We are not responsible for:

• the decisions, delays, errors or fees of the offices we deal with, or of couriers once they have your documents;
• whether a document is accepted for your intended purpose, in Nigeria or abroad;
• loss caused by information or documents you gave us being inaccurate; or
• indirect losses, such as a missed deadline, opportunity or travel date.

Unless the law requires otherwise, our total liability on any request is limited to the fees you paid us for that request, excluding official fees and delivery. Nothing in these terms limits liability that the law does not allow us to limit, including liability for fraud.

13. Records

We keep a permanent record of every step on your request. That record includes the fingerprint of each document as sent and as returned, and your signed authorisation. You agree that we may rely on these records as evidence of what was done and when. How we handle that information is set out in our privacy policy.

14. Closing an account

You can ask us to close your account at any time. We may suspend or close an account that breaks these terms. Work already paid for will be completed or refunded under section 8. Records are kept as the privacy policy describes.

15. Complaints and disputes

If something goes wrong, tell us first at contact@bondseal.ng. We will look into it and reply, and most problems are settled that way. These terms are governed by the laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Any dispute we cannot settle between us will be heard by the courts of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.

16. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms, and will revise the date at the top when we do. A request you have already paid for continues under the terms that applied when you paid.