Essentials for buying a property

The notary is an independent holder of a public office. This is evident from the fact that the notary bears an official seal and his official badge bears the respective state coat of arms.
The notary is active in the field of preventive administration of justice, which distinguishes him from the lawyer on the one hand and the judge on the other. Unlike the lawyer, the notary is not a representative of one party, but an independent and impartial advisor and counsellor to all parties involved. He is not permitted to represent interests unilaterally; instead, he must protect legally inexperienced parties.

What distinguishes the notary from the judge is that he does not decide disputes through judgement, but rather tries to prevent potential points of contention from arising in the first place, both when providing advice and when drafting the deed. For this reason, the legislator has prescribed notarisation for legal transactions with serious consequences, whereby only property purchases, marriage contracts and inheritance contracts should be mentioned here; in addition, due to the high evidential value of notarial deeds, notarial certification of signatures is often required, for example in dealings with state registers, such as entries in the land register and in the commercial and association register.

Furthermore, notarised deeds such as court judgements can form enforcement titles. The most common case to be mentioned here is that the buyer submits to immediate enforcement of the purchase price when purchasing a property. If, contrary to the contractual agreement, the buyer does not pay the purchase price, enforcement can be carried out directly from the notarised deed without first having to take legal action for payment of the purchase price. This serves both to speed up the enforcement of payment claims and to relieve the burden on the courts.

Even if it is not mandatory by law, it can still make sense to utilise notarial assistance in other areas. This is the case, for example, with the drafting of a will. Unlike a handwritten will, a notarised will is a public deed, which in most cases makes a certificate of inheritance procedure unnecessary. For example, the land register can be corrected after the inheritance on the basis of the notarised will. If there is only a handwritten will, a certificate of inheritance must be submitted, which requires a certificate of inheritance procedure that incurs higher costs than a notarised will.

The notary must draw up the deeds in accordance with the wishes of the parties involved and advise the parties accordingly. To this end, he must enquire into the wishes of the parties involved. This requires that you inform the notary comprehensively of all relevant circumstances. To this end, the parties involved must sometimes disclose intimate financial and personal circumstances. This is why the legislator has given the notary a comprehensive duty of confidentiality towards everyone. This obligation also applies to all those employed by the notary. Every party involved can therefore rely on the fact that confidential information really does remain confidential.

Finally, it should be pointed out in this context that anyone can visit the notary of their choice, whether professionally or personally. Although every notary is assigned an official seat, this does not mean that the notary may only notarise, for example, properties located in his official area or that he can only notarise wills of persons who live in his official area. The question of the costs incurred is also not a criterion for selecting a notary. Notary fees are set by law in the GNotKG for all notaries and may therefore neither be exceeded nor undercut.