I know the USA embassy in London can, yet looking at their schedule of appointments there are either no days (coming up or in over a year) and only a few in June where they are marked “fully booked”
As every day this week I’ve had to wait till 2PM BST to call either Florida in EDT or California in PDT. I actually naively took it for granted that if I traveled to the USA London Embassy tomorrow during late morning they’d do it. I do not need the document notarized, just “signature guarantee”. I show my USA passport, any other ID, sign and it all should be over quick.
I’ll certainly call them at open time tomorrow, and would really like this done ASAP if not tomorrow then perhaps next week. If I do not need a special appointment, and perhaps just need to visit during certain hours, that’d be fine.
I will also be in touch with solicitors and other money-related people tomorrow so of course can ask them. I am hoping that outside of the embassy, there is some person who can do this service. None of my googling thus far has shown anyone but UK people who can guarantee signatures for UK documents. I don’t know if having USA citizenship is a requirement (thus the embassy) or if look hard enough, can I find someone who definitely can do this here, for a USA document?
I think the term you want to google is “medallion signature guarantee”, which is, AIUI, the type of authentication US financial institutions want to see in probate cases. If you add “London” or “UK” in your search, you’ll find a number of UK-based firms of solicitors that provide such guarantees under US law as a service.
I just saw that Lloyds bank might provide that and the document does mention “medallion”: * Lloyds Bank / Bank of Scotland (may offer medallion services in rare cases)
There is a Lloyds five minutes walk from here, yet the “rare cases” bit is not encouraging, unless it means “Not this bank but one in London” - not sure what “rare” means.
It looks like even the USA embassy charges $50 so I cannot see how they’d not find time to fit me in for 5 minutes.
Outside of those two, the others are USA affiliated banks (Citibank UK, HSBC - if I have accounts and they’re all in London if anywhere too).
I’ll see about Lloyds, yet is seems like no solicitor will know any better than “USA embassy”.
Yes, thanks! Searching for “medallion” rather than “signature guarantee” does provide quite a number of other possibilities. If I’m really lucky, somewhere I can drive to rather than get to Grosvenor Square in London, but right now anywhere that does either before 2027 is good.
Minor note: The US embassy in London isn’t in Grosvenor Square anymore; it moved to Nine Elms a few years ago. The former embassy building is being converted into, IIRC, a hotel.
And as a bit of trivia: The former embassy building in Grosvenor Square was, for a long time, the only US embassy not owned outright by the American government. The land is owned by the Duke of Westminster, who granted a long-term lease to the government. At some point, the Americans wanted to buy the freehold, but the Duke semi-jokingly replied that he’d only accept a swap for his family’s American landholdings that were confiscated after the Revolutionary War.
Thanks. Oddly I knew it was in that area south of the Thames and not near Hyde Park where many other embassies are, so I knew I’d be targeting Battersea or Waterloo.
Their website is extremely lame, and slow plus not only did I get a captcha I got 404’d several times, yet when I did get through to something at least they open at 7:30AM. So at least tomorrow morning I can get through to them and hear “Can you be here June 14, 2027?”
I don’t know. After that I was able to see there’s a travel advisory to the UK. A chance of terrorist attacks. I saw WTC1 and WTC2 crumble. So I’m real scared.
Yet the 7:30 time allows me time to call places for the Medallion stamp which is just as good.
Make sure you inform the institution what kind of document you are getting the guarantee for. The OP said they “just” need a signature guarantee, but a medallion signature guarantee is a higher level of guarantee than a notarization. A notarization just means the notary checked your ID and it looks legit to them. But if a bank gives a medallion guarantee and it turns out that the signer was fraudulently misrepresenting themselves, the bank is financially responsible for repaying any money lost to the fraud. I have had my bank refuse to do a signature guarantee for a specific document because the amount of money involved was over their limit.
I know some countries (Russia for one) locate their consulates right next door to the Embassies yet does the USA? I know Wales and Belfast do (have consulates), yet not sure there is one in Scotland that will do and I’d only go so far as Wales (assuming I could). And I presume that Ireland (either the ROI or English Dublin consulate) wouldn’t do it - maybe then take a drive up to Belfast yet I think if London is so disheveled I doubt Belfast is better or if it’d be accepted in the USA.
Oh, so it’s quite a different thing than a guarantee and likely comes a a higher price if there’s liability involved. The document itself doesn’t even mention the cost, just that it’s 1/3rd of an annuity or some kind of fund. I have what look to be camera photos that show the total that is there and I can print those two if they’re at all acceptable.
I don’t know what entity is going to hold liable whatever entity liable if Franklin Templeton sends a dollar check that I’ll already have to jump through a few hoops to make it fungible as pounds.
I do not need notary services nor would I want to pay for them (via medallion) unless I can do it locally.
I tried calling the embassy and it instantly hung up on me. I saw there was another number, but it’s the “Emergency Number” and it’s exactly the same. If not a third world country, the USA Embassy is clearly third-rate.
Somewhere else I saw they don’t open till 8:30 and it’s nice that hanging up saves them the expense of having one of those super expensive voice message machines so hanging up is better.
I thought the medallion route was better as it seems much more widespread and serves other countries. And it looks like signature guarantees are only do-able for me at a understaffed embassy.
And they’ve sent me back to USA London and that doesn’t function in terms of the senseless errors it’s throwing at me.
They did eventually answer the phone (operator) and their schedule for “consular services” calendar page loads, yet they only do this on Tuesday’s and Thursday’s and unless Tuesday, June 3 magically opens up (no clue why it’s still “not yet open”, I am hitting refresh every minute or so hoping the Thursday the 19 or 26 open. Supposedly they only do updates on this calendar Friday morning for the next few upcoming weeks so perhaps only the 19th is possible, though the 24th is fully booked so I guess this concert is sold out.
And at least for notary, I need two witnesses with photo ID. So even if I bring my wife along, I need at least another.
And the fourth “The requested URL was rejected. Please consult with your administrator. Your support ID is: 15584579800528443377” The USA Embassy. What a disgrace. I’ll just blame trump and DOGE and try for the Medallion route.
Some good news today, for either those following the psycho brother thread or this one:
After relaying how the USA Embassy let me down today by adding no more June “notary” appointments and that calendar page throwing an error on refresh about half the time, I went out to visit Lloyds bank, a solicitor who was in today (this week is called “mid-terms” and everybody at least in finance related stuff must have a convention on the beach in Barcelona this week).
Any of those I did speak to had never heard of “Medallion Stamps” and I basically lost them after saying “USA embassy” so most of what I said must have sounded to them like the muted trumpet sound of adults in Charlie Brown / Peanuts TV shows. I can understand that.
From Medallion-related firms, I received all kinds of quotes upwards of £300 ($360 or so) plus the gathering of wills, solicitor services and the clear message, “No! money down!”
Then a condescending email from my brother the executor, “It’s pretty simple: you tell Pacific Life, Franklin Templeton, and Fidelity to make a deposit into your bank account.”
Part of my reply was, ‘Grand advice: “Ask for money and you shall receive it. Easy peasy.”’
Yet, near the end of a call with “Franklin Templeton” today I asked, “Is it somehow possible to avoid the signature guarantee the USA embassy has no time to grant me, and avoid collecting all the documents before even approaching some Medallion firm” and the answer turns out to be “Yes!” I’ll need a solicitor, perhaps a bank, some kind of financial tax person - all of whom I’d have needed if I eventually did get a check here in dollars. So for the weekend, I’m quite happy. Especially if I discover Fidelity is handing out money to anyone who asks for it next week.
The words mean different things in different countries. In Aus, notaries are the ones who take legal responsibility for documents, so I think the same is probably true in the UK. They are used to notarize high-value international shipping documents, and you pay for that.
I asked the FT firm if they were not using UPS/Fed-ex to send these newer documents which ought to state how much dollars are involved (which I’d have needed for the medallion stamp anyway) to me in the UK and were going to just regularly email to my USA address (where I hope my brother or niece can then relay to me using UPS which I’ve used their “Express” option for which is more like 2 days not overnight) and email me the same so I can at least approach whomever I need (banks, solicitors, tax people) and be prepared to do something I understand to be more akin to signature/identity validation yet ought to be do-able for quite a bit less fees and time than the “Medallion” route would both cost and it seemed July was optimistic whereas now June is a reasonable possibility.
There may still be a spanner (wrench) yet to throw into the works yet so long as the entity/entities I need are people I can deal with in person and whatever I send back to FT is acceptable that will be splendid.
Just to be clear, I asked if they could either use some UPS/Fed-ex service to send here, or regular mail here which likely be faster than mailing my USA address then requiring assistance to then UPS here.
And of course the latter option exposes my mail to being pilfered by psycho family who would now be allowed (as they own 1/3 of the house) to take possession of the mail.
At any rate, the email ought to be enough to achieve the confidence level I’ve had crushed last week.