Notaries provide the community with a complex service, they carry out a public function of the State within the framework of an independent profession.
The notarial deed not only regulates transactions between parties, but it provides added value in at least three respects:
- a contract signed before a notary is unchallengable and hence it avoids expensive and time-consuming litigation procedures;
- it is enforceable and hence it can be used to recover credits and it constitutes privileged evidence in a trial;
- the general certainty of rights ensured by the reliability of public registers provides conditions of social stability in a framework of legality which is indispensable for business transactions.
What about the fees charged by notaries?
How much of the bill we pay is actually the notary’s fee?
The costs of a notarial deed comprise: duties and taxes that the Notary collects on behalf of the State; expenses incurred with the public administration offices for preparing the deed and subsequent obligations to be fulfilled after the signing of the deed; and the Notary’s fee for his services.
For instance, in transferring the ownership of a second-hand car, the Notary’s fee is on average, some 20-25 euros. Most of the cost incurred by the purchaser (up to 400-500 euros) are other charges, most of which are taxes.
The Notary’s fee is regulated by a national rate that is set by law.
The amount paid includes the expenses incurred by the Notary to ensure the efficient management of his office. The Telematics forwarding of deeds to the Public Registrar’s Office is indeed possible thanks to an I.T. infrastructure that has been set up and paid by the Association of Italian Notaries. It connects the notaries to the Public Administration network.
The activities carried out by the notary do not end with the signing of the deed by the parties but include also duties, tasks and obligations that are carried out both before and after the conclusion of the agreement.
For instance, in summary, for a property purchase deed, the activity of the notary includes:
- interviews with the parties to explain and clarify the aspects involved in purchasing a property, the town-planning implications, examining the position of the parties and illustrating the possible operative solutions suited to the aims the parties wish to achieve;
- drafting of the notarial deed introducing all the clasues and phrases that the law envisages for the case at hand;
- mortgage and land registry checks, that the notary must make in order to identify the property and check its ownership title and make sure that it is free from encumbrances and free from any other charges that the purchaser might have to incur after the purchase;
- searches in other public registers, where this is envisaged;
- checking that the parties can exercise their rights;
- identifying and decidine what actions need to be taken to protect the parties if there are mortgages or other potentially harmful formalities;
- checking that the agreement is lawful and, where necessary, identify solutions that are consistent with the law, as alternatives to the request made by the parties;
- specify what taxes apply and any the other amount due;
- in relation to the financial status of the family examine how it may be influenced by the purchase;
- registration obligations and communication of the data to the competent public offices;
- carrying out the registration formalities;
- analysing the “private international law” aspects, where foreign laws were to apply for cases in which one of the parties were to be a foreign citizen or lives abroad or where the case at hand involves international law in any way;
- issue copies and carry out the formalities for the conservation of the document.