Which is cheaper: Fly back home or see the Notary?

Notaries in Australia are not cheap. They are qualified lawyers with several years experience. The fee scale for Notaries in NSW can be found at www.notarynsw.org.au/fees-scale. Mostly you are being asked to notarise the documents in Australia because you are not in the overseas country where it needs to be signed. If you were overseas in many instances you could sign it there. Notarising a document in NSW is cheaper than flying overseas to do it. And this doesn’t take into account the time involved in flying there and back (which would mean taking time off work) For transactions with several documents you can also negotiate a discount or preferred rate.