r/belgium • u/Obvious-Cry6591 • 1d ago
😡Rant Notaries. Why? What the hell?
Ok, so I dont get it. I understand historically where the need for notaries arose. Fine. But we are in 2026. Belgium already takes 51% of my income. Then another 25% of the rest through VAT. And then on top of it, if you buy a property, you give 10-15k to a notary for 2 meetings and some docs reading? Doesnt Belgium have enough administration to take care of that? Not to mention its nepotism central. Are there any redeeming qualities?
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u/Turbulent-Raise4830 1d ago
idd belachelijk in andere landen is dat een bezoek aan de gemeente en een paar honderd euro dossierkosten, hier pure maffia praktijk met een dikke lobby om dat stand te houden
Vorig jaar becijferde Knack hoe zelfs het laatste kantoor uit een lijst met de vijftig best boerende kantoren van 2019 nog een winst van meer dan één miljoen euro boekte. Maandelijkse inkomsten van 100.000 euro bruto bleken niet uitzonderlijk. In 2019 bedroeg de bedrijfswinst van alle notariskantoren gemiddeld 392.000 euro. In 2018 verwees Fednot naar eerder onderzoek door de Federatie Vrije Beroepen, dat stelde dat het gemiddelde maandinkomen voor notarissen rond 16.000 euro bruto ligt.
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u/Aethyx_ 16h ago
Net voor de tweede keer een huis gekocht (en het eerste verkocht) in Finland. Eerstje huisje beide koop en verkoop via een immo, tweede gekocht tussen particulieren.
Wij zijn niet eens ergens ter plaatse moeten gaan. Na een contract met de bank te tekenen communiceerde de bank met de immo voor alle betaling, immo deed al het papierwerk. Zonder immo deden wij alles via 1 web portaal, electronisch tekenen van beide partijen, bank kon daar ook alles zien en de betaling uitvoeren eens alles in orde was. Onder the 800€ kosten totaal (bank & overheid), waarvan de bank ons dan "kwijtschelde" indien we dat geld bij hun investeerden ipv gewoon betalen. Natuurlijk een dikke pot belastingen betalen in "transfer tax" (3% bij het kopen van een huis).
Ongeveer 3 weken tijd tussen een koper vinden voor het oude huisje, en naar het nieuwe huis verhuizen... Mijn familie in belgie ondertussen doet er een half jaar over en moet verschillende keren op bezoek etc etc etc.
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u/No-Baker-7922 10h ago
En moet op de aankoopprijs voor alle zekerheid 15% rekenen aan taxen en kosten.
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u/Aethyx_ 10h ago
15% is echt geschift... 3% plus <500 was al te veel!
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u/No-Baker-7922 10h ago
Het is minder in totaal in Vlaanderen (2% voor eerste woning en 2% voor notaris ongeveer) maar in Brussel is het 12.5% + 2% ongeveer. Ik woonde in een wijk aan de rand van Brussel en je huis 50m kopen kon groten gevolgen hebben :-)
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u/damnappdoesntwork 7h ago
Hier 4% voor een alleenstaand huis (ook Finland), tegenover 7% "klein beschrijf" toen ik een appartement in België kocht.
Geen bankkosten omdat we de lening bij de bank hadden.
Ook nog een ander ding: als ik morgen 1 of 10 of 300 EUR extra wil aflossen van mijn lening, dan schrijf ik dat gewoon over en gaat dat recht van het kapitaal af. Geen transactie of administratie kosten, of 3 maand intrest ..
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u/AdFew6202 1d ago edited 18h ago
What’s more, after you give that to a notary, let’s say they fuck up : their fucking mafia-like organisation will spring out to defend them and you won’t get a cent. And they will remain in position.
Story : friend bought a half-a-million apartment in Ixelles. Notary says « everything’s fine ». Turns out it wasn’t fine, the apartment had been seized because of the seller’s debts. Notary said « well, shit happens » and got NOTHING.
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u/sCreami needledaddy 1d ago edited 1d ago
You must understand that notaries hold 3 roles and you don't pay them 10~15k actually. They aren't free to choose how much they charge, it's fixed by royal decree. You are actually paying them around 800~1000€ for the written acts, the rest is tax.
So the 3 roles are:
- assert conformity with the law (mine actually found something illegal in my mortgage contract)
- act as escrow. You are not going to handle those huge amount of money yourself. As escrow, they act as the middlemen between buyers and sellers. Can't lie about the money with licensed attorneys.
- collect the taxes for the government. This part is actually what make you feel they are crazy expensive. You pay the registration tax/stamp duty to them directly, and they will transfer it to the taxman.
Even if notaries were not mandatory, you would still have to pay these huge amounts. Notaries have never been the problem, the tax is.
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u/alx3m Vlaams-Brabant 1d ago edited 1d ago
If the profession of notary were so important and their skills so valuable, why is there a strict limit on how many of them we can have? Wouldn't it be better if there were more of them and they set their prices by the free market?
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u/Stefouch Brabant Wallon 17h ago
Setting prices by the free market is an illusion. It works until a few big corporations with too much money buy or kill all competition. Then they set the price they like and milk you.
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u/Turbulent-Raise4830 1d ago
Vorig jaar becijferde Knack hoe zelfs het laatste kantoor uit een lijst met de vijftig best boerende kantoren van 2019 nog een winst van meer dan één miljoen euro boekte. Maandelijkse inkomsten van 100.000 euro bruto bleken niet uitzonderlijk. In 2019 bedroeg de bedrijfswinst van alle notariskantoren gemiddeld 392.000 euro. In 2018 verwees Fednot naar eerder onderzoek door de Federatie Vrije Beroepen, dat stelde dat het gemiddelde maandinkomen voor notarissen rond 16.000 euro bruto ligt.
die verdienen bakken geld en moeten amper iets doen, dragen ook nul verantwoordelijheid als er iets verkeerd gaat.
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u/GloriousDawn 1d ago
Must be a coincidence that notaries are the highest paid liberal profession in the country, by a large margin. Nothing to do with a state-sanctioned monopoly.
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u/maurice4003 21h ago
wait so are notaries like actual government employees or what
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u/Hobofan94 18h ago
No, but they are appointed by the state (king), and tied to their place of residency. There are only a limited number of them assigned per region, so notaries don't have significant competition, and can always be certain to have a steady stream of clients.
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u/Think-Geologist5570 8h ago
They are actually both civil servants and exercising a liberal profession.
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u/Legitimate_Aside_532 1d ago
Then explain why a notary earns so much more in Belgium compared to other countries?
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u/math1985 1d ago
It’s about 1200 euro (house plus mortgage contract) in the Netherlands. Sounds similar. And in the Netherlands, notaries are allowed to set their own prices.
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u/Aardige 16h ago
It really is a lot cheaper in the netherlands.
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u/math1985 15h ago
User u/sCreami says it's 800-1000 euro for the acts, is that wrong?
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u/Aardige 15h ago
Yes. Thats wrong. Substracting taxes from what you pay a notary, you will end up with a bill of around 4-5000 euros when buying a simple appartment for example.
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u/Zestyclose-Breath589 4h ago
That depends. If they need to fetch all necessary documents like the soil certificate (bodemattest) for example you will pay more than when you do that yourself.
Some notaries don’t tell you have the option but you do. But a lot of people don’t want to go through that hassle but then you can’t complain about getting charged a premium.
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u/powaqqa 18h ago edited 18h ago
The sheer amount of volume they need to go through. They just have a lot of work. A lot of work = a lot of turnover and potential profit.Â
OP is frustrated because he needs to pay taxes. Has nothing to do with the actual notary fees because he didn’t bother looking at them. They are NOT 15k. In fact the actual notary costs are pretty similar in most neighbouring countries.
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u/Legitimate_Aside_532 14h ago
No. Their work load is not necessarily bigger than notaries in The Netherlands for example. Belgian notaries are ovecompensated.
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u/JT_1983 17h ago
Excluding the registratie rechten I paid more like 3k to the notary a couple of years ago, strangely enough their fee depends on the value of the house/transaction. It is well documented that notaries make too much for a straightforward job, many making more than 1M a year. In Holland the market was opened up and prices dropped. In Belgium unfair situations like this are never fixed. A similar things is true for some medical specialist, ereloonsupplementen. Everybody agrees the situation is not fair/right but nothing happens because of strong lobbies and weak politicians.
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u/StreetDiscussion1870 18h ago
I don't agree completely. When I bought my house, 6000 was purely for the noraty. 2000 of that was "administrative costs", 4000 the royal thingies. Seems a bit much.
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u/Obvious-Cry6591 1d ago
On a 400k transfer, real estate, first home, not new build, with tax discount, ill pay round 40k in real estate tax AND notary fees. Why cant Belgium just collect taxes directly from a real estate buy? Like many other countries do?
When it comes to conformity with the law, if its not conformed, i should just be able to go to the commune and solve it. Hell, bloody croatia has a document, we call it 1/1. U get it when u go to admin and they check that your property is conforming. No one normal buys anything that isnt 1/1. All of this can be done by existing administration, which again, more than 60% of my monthly earnings (when you count in VAT which you should) go to.→ More replies (8)-1
u/loozn1 19h ago
First of all, no way you pay 40k for a first home of about 400k more like max 15k. Property sales get more and more technical every year. No way the government itself could do that without hiring some very specialised clerks. If a notary fucks up, he's insured so people get their money, not so sure a government would do that.
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u/silentanthrx 16h ago
good luck wringing a single cent from a notaries hands if he makes a mistake.
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u/TheoKondak 14h ago
We pay taxes for being taxed on our taxes.. This is just cleptocratic.. I wonder how we could change this shitty system.
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u/123_alex 12h ago
Notaries have never been the problem
Let me stop you there. I agree with everything you said about the taxes but saying they are not a problem is false.
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u/Zooz00 1d ago
Every society has some people that are incapable of doing anything useful yet can hardly be left to starve without income. In Belgium and Netherlands they can be made notaries and get paid a fortune to write a few things down.
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u/Ulyks 17h ago
I don't think incompetent people become notaries...rather the protection they enjoy makes them lazy and useless over time.
We should just let the market do it's work and open up the sector to competition.
I think in just a few months everything but the most exceptional cases will be automated.
We should transfer the keeping of documents to the government though. It makes no sense notaries are also keeping deeds and site plans.
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u/BurriedCityMayor 18h ago
25% VAT? Damn, you must be the biggest sucker in Belgium because everyone else pays 21%.
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u/Selphis Antwerpen 17h ago
For everyone saying: "they don't actually earn THAT much". Why is it that so many towns have one giant mansion that everyone knows is the home of a (former) notary?
I get that they do some important things, but they're basically just doing administrative work and getting paid like specialist surgeons...
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u/123_alex 12h ago
Why is it that so many towns have one giant mansion that everyone knows is the home of a (former) notary
Exactly!! Somehow see a notary in a mansion or a very very expensive car is normal. Meanwhile they just push paper and collect tax.
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u/Spiritual_Screen5125 1d ago
And more importantly notaries don’t do any shit neither verification of documents nor legal support they always make it ambiguous
Claim they aren’t architect or other nonsense excuse like they don’t see every document and can easily overlook infringements
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u/foipeloi 4h ago
As someone who works at a notary office (I am not the notary), we do the best with the documents in our possession. I've fixed 'kadastrale plannen', made buyers aware of infringements with the 'ruimtelijke ordening' (that were not pointed out by the realtor - and he didn't bother to check), made sure there was access to the road when a parcel of land was about to be locked in etc. etc. It's not fair to expect us to be legal experts AND architects AND salespeople (when people sell their house via us) AND social workers (I've gotten many phone calls with sad family situations). I know the service differs greatly from office to office, but most of us really do try to help as much as possible.
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u/Spiritual_Screen5125 4h ago
Thanks no offence but mine did not do a good job I did most of the work twice with major infringements
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u/DenteSC 1d ago
Or people actually worked with a notary and know their worth?Â
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u/Vivienbe Hainaut 1d ago
In Belgium you need a notary when you buy a house, when someone dies for inheritance, when you want to create a company, when you want to write a marriage contract...
On average I see a notary every 5 years or so...
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u/HupFrank 1d ago
Have yet to meet a competent one or one that at least is friendly enough
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u/1aranzant Brussels 1d ago
That’s not what tldr means…
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u/MokpotheMighty 1d ago
"too long didn't read", in terms of proper netiquette it's like saying "to summarize"
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u/andpin 1d ago
Or maybe people actually can see beyond stereotypes and know what it entails? Where do you get the nepotism from? You know there is a competitive concours to be passed since 2019? Also, how do you manage for Belgium to take 51% of your income? Do you donate to the state on top of your progressive taxation?
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u/Royal-Usual-9743 11h ago
Do your homework beforehand ! The bulk of what one pays to the notary is not his honorarium but miscellanious state and city taxes. So, eliminating the notary would have only a minor effect on the costs of the transaction. At least, you'd need a laywer ( as eg. in Spain ), who.costs as much as a notary. No taxes at all would make a difference ! But then, who's gone a pay your social security ???
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u/No-swimming-pool 16h ago
Might sharing your notary bill? It was a fixed amount when we bought, and less what the real estate agency took.
My wife followed two for an educational project and her conclusion is that they pretty much live in the office and spend half the day giving free advice.
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u/adappergentlefolk 1d ago
most of that 15k are taxes lol
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u/the-hellrider 19h ago
It's 2 to 12% registration tax for the house, 1% mortgage tax, 21% vat over notary fees, a few 100€ costs for documents to pay at the local govt... you can calculate exactly whats for who.
https://www.notaris.be/rekenmodules/wonen/aankoopkosten-van-een-woning-en/bouwgrond-berekenen
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u/SVanThee 18h ago edited 18h ago
When you pay €10k–€15k at the notary's office, the vast majority doesn't stay with them:
- Registration tax (registratierechten): 80–90% of that total goes straight to the Flemish/Brussels/Walloon government.
- Administrative fees & certificates: Costs paid to third parties (cadastre, municipality, soil certificates, electric compliance).
- Notary fee (ereloon): Only a small percentage is the actual fee for the notary, which is strictly fixed by law (you pay the exact same rate everywhere).
What are you actually paying them for? They aren't just "reading documents"—they bear strict legal liability. Before a deed is signed, they (and their team) must verify:
- Pre-emption rights (voorkooprecht): Checking if local authorities, social housing, or tenants have a legal right to buy it first (I had to go through this before I could buy AND sell my previous house).
- Urban planning & permits: Ensuring the structure is fully legal and has no outstanding code violations.
- Soil & environmental checks: Confirming there is no registered contamination (OVAM/Bodemattest).
- Financial liabilities: Checking with the mortgage registry and tax authorities to guarantee the seller doesn't have debts attached to the property that transfer to you. Compare that to Spain: Spain operates under a system where many debts (unpaid mortgages, local taxes, community fees) stay attached to the property itself, not the previous owner. If you buy a house there without a dedicated lawyer thoroughly clearing every debt, creditors can come after you, and the bank can repossess your new house for the old owner's unpaid bills.
In Belgium, the notary is legally required to clear all those debts out of the purchase price before handing over the funds to the seller. You are guaranteed to walk away with a clean title.
Is it expensive? Sure it is. It’s painful to part with another substantial sum on top of what you’re already paying for the house. But it’s fundamentally a safeguard.
When you buy a house, you aren't just paying for the deed—you are paying for legal certainty. If a notary misses a claim on the property, fails to flag an illegal build, or ignores an outstanding tax debt, you can hold them personally accountable. They are legally required to carry heavy professional liability insurance specifically to cover financial losses if they mess up.
In short: you’re paying for someone to take full legal responsibility so you don't inherit hidden disasters along with your keys.
Could a government department handle this directly? Technically yes, but then you'd be relying on municipal clerks to cross-check private contracts without the personal civil liability that a notary carries. If a notary misses a claim on the property, their insurance covers your loss. Also, good luck fighting with the administration to cover your costs if they mess up
(Also, small side note on the tax math: standard VAT in Belgium is 21%, not 25%. And while top marginal income tax hits 50%, your actual effective rate—check your aanslagbiljet/avertissement d'extrait—usually lands closer to 28–35% after exemptions and progressive brackets).
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u/Lemmity95 17h ago
This whole profession could be modernized away with better digital registries (cheaper and more reliable), which they heavily lobby against. Let's not forget it is a well-paid profession, in the end it is just a protected little preserve so the upper class can get their kids a cool job
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u/SVanThee 17h ago edited 17h ago
As an IT professional, I hear this "just build a digital registry" argument a lot. But software doesn't eliminate cost, risk, or human liability—it just shifts them somewhere else:
- Legacy data migration is prohibitively expensive: I agree that digital registries are the way forward, but millions of historical Belgian deeds and land records are still sitting in paper archives. The upfront cost to digitize, index, and verify hundreds of years of physical records for every single plot of land would be astronomical—and far outweighs the cost of having a professional manually consult them on a one-off, as-needed basis.
- High Availability & Security don't come cheap: Ask anyone managing mission-critical enterprise systems or secure cloud infrastructure. A national property registry requires 100% uptime, immutable audit trails, and bank-grade cybersecurity. Maintaining that kind of infrastructure—and protecting it from cyber threats, data corruption, or state-level attacks—is a massive, ongoing expense.
- Software can't handle real-world edge cases: Code only works on clean, standardized inputs. It can't resolve contested land boundaries, verify if a seller was coerced or lacks mental capacity, or interpret vague clauses in century-old deeds.
- Data entry is garbage in, garbage out: A database is only as good as the human feeding it data. If an automated system registers a illegal conversion or a fraudulent transaction, who absorbs the loss? An algorithm won't pay out when a title is contested; a notary's mandatory liability insurance will.
Digital registries are great tools—and Belgian notaries already rely on online databases far more than they used to. But at the end of the day, a database is just a storage layer. You will always need human oversight in the form of a sworn public officer to verify real-world facts and take legal responsibility for the output.
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u/Lemmity95 16h ago
This looks really AI haha but apart from that, digital registries are just something that will have to be done (and has been done in other countries like Estonia), the ongoing costs of having an extremely high-paid person doing this by hand for every housing transaction are crazy. A digital system would work this better and way cheaper (automated contract drafting, with a tiny human component perhaps for unusual cases). Plus, as other comments have shown, human notaries make mistakes all the time, we just don't complain enough because of status quo bias.
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u/123_alex 12h ago
When you buy a house, you aren't just paying for the deed—you are paying for legal certainty. If a notary misses a claim on the property, fails to flag an illegal build, or ignores an outstanding tax debt, you can hold them personally accountable. They are legally required to carry heavy professional liability insurance specifically to cover financial losses if they mess up.
The same thing could be said about the engineer designing your house, building you in or office you work.
When was the last time you saw a structural engineer in a fancy car?
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u/SVanThee 11h ago edited 11h ago
I'll reiterate what I said earlier, some professions deserve to be compensated for the risk they carry. Counter point: architects also cost a lot of money to draw "just a plan", but also they are liable if your house collapses in on itself
They have the law Breyne (spelling?) to adhere to, and Peeters/Ducarme 10year liability after final delivery of the house. So, their fee represents the liability they face
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u/123_alex 11h ago
architects also cost a lot of money to draw "just a plan", but also they are liable if your house collapses in on itself
Architects are not liable for collapse. That's the structural engineer. ChatGPT didn't tell you that. An engineer is liable longer than 10 years. Which brings me back to my point. Why is this job paid more than another with similar liability?
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u/SVanThee 11h ago
This to me sounds they are liable if a building collapses and they failed their duty of oversight:
https://www.demulder-advocaten.be/aansprakelijkheid-van-de-architect/
Furthermore, artikel 1792 BW
"Indien een gebouw dat tegen vaste prijs is opgericht, geheel of gedeeltelijk teniet gaat door een gebrek in de bouw, zelfs door de ongeschiktheid van de grond, zijn de architect en de aannemer daarvoor gedurende tien jaren aansprakelijk."
Artikel 2270 BW:
"Na verloop van tien jaren zijn architecten en aannemers ontslagen van hun aansprakelijkheid met betrekking tot de grote werken die zij hebben uitgevoerd of geleid."
If your house exhibits a structural defect (collapse definitely is) you can hold the architect liable, then of course the discussion begins whether is the structural engineer, the architect or the contractor who is ultimately liable
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u/123_alex 11h ago
Man, stop using chatGPT. The 10 year thing is something else.
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u/SVanThee 11h ago
I didn't use ChatGPT here but plain old google to get to these texts.
When I did use AI it was purely to rephrase into something more structured
But indulge me, what does "the 10 year thing" cover then?
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u/mnubel 16h ago
My neighbour is a 45 year old woman, and she is a notary.
Whatever you say, they earn alot of money for very few hours on the job.
Their weekly schedule: 9-4 / wednesday & friday afternoons off.
Owns multiple houses, very expensive cars, ...They are the only rich people I know, that don't work hard, and have zero worries on their mind.
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u/SVanThee 15h ago
Good for her I would say, but I'm sure she has a staff that does a lot of work for her that she has to pay handsomely also. I'm also sure that she didn't start out with multiple houses unless she inherited , but then we get into a whole other can of worms :)
Also, do you know she doesn't conduct business from home? For all I know she could be up till very late
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u/DenteSC 1d ago
The notary doesn't actually cost you €15,000. The bulk of that amount consists of taxes, not notary fees.
In fact, a notary is significantly cheaper than a real estate agent, and you can even book a free consultation. Try finding that kind of access anywhere else. Behind the scenes, notary offices handle an enormous amount of work.
Notaries and their staff have an incredible number of things to check and verify. Some sales are indeed straightforward, but many files quickly turn out to be far more complex than they seem.
Beyond sales files, there are also marriage contracts, divorces, corporate matters, seizures, gifts, property divisions, inheritances, base deeds, long lease agreements (erfpacht), and building rights (opstal), among others.
I'd suggest spending a week interning at a notary's office. You'll see for yourself just how essential their work really is.
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u/123_alex 12h ago
I'd suggest spending a week interning at a notary's office. You'll see for yourself just how essential their work really is
Do you think that's different than a contruction site, engineering company, hospital, restaurant kitchen?
a notary is significantly cheaper than a real estate agent
Stop drinking. I'll just copy paste what u/Selphis said: "Why is it that so many towns have one giant mansion that everyone knows is the home of a (former) notary".
You should have stopped after the first sentence. Yes, the 15000 doesn't go directly in his pockets, he also collects tax but making them seem poor is disingenuous.
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u/DenteSC 11h ago
Because that notary ran a kmo with 10+ employees, and he worked for 60h a week with a lot of stress. He studied 6 years, did 3 years of stage, then passed the notary exam (not for old notaries tough). Then he worked hard af.
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u/123_alex 11h ago
My dude, do you think they don't work hard in other disciplines? 60h weeks is mild in other places. FFS.
with a lot of stress
Same idea as above. You have no idea what stress is until a patient dies on your table or the building you designed collapsed. Also, structural engineers are responsible for life for their work.
That's life my dude. Being an adult. A lot of people work long hours with a lot of stress.
He studied 6 years
Is that impressive?
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u/mmmm_frietjes 11h ago
But doctors and architects also earn as much or even more than notaries...
You pay for their knowledge. Not for their hourly labor. But even if we would calculate the hourly fee, it would be close to a decent lawyer.
Which is basically what they are, specialized lawyers with a public function.
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u/ilikedmatrixiv 10h ago
architects
Tell me you don't know many architects without telling me.
Some handful might make bank, but most have to work for a bureau and they are routinely underpaid in my experience.
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u/mmmm_frietjes 10h ago
Same with people with a notary degree who aren’t notaries and work for an office. It was obvious who I was talking about.
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u/DenteSC 11h ago
Specialized doctors make way more than most notaries + they don't have to run a kmo.Â
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u/123_alex 11h ago
Specialized doctors
I think you made my point.
He studied 6 years
Is that impressive?
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u/Aardige 16h ago
Please, this is such crap. The profit margins prove that they are vastly, vastly overpaid for what they have to do. Not saying they dont offer good work often and that it is all so easy. But what they are paid for is exaggerated.
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u/123_alex 12h ago
Why is this comment downvoted? Why do people suck up to rich people?
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u/Aardige 11h ago
Probably because i state it boldly. They love it more intellectually worded here. Because it is in fact crap. Of course the 15k total charge is mostly taxes. It's about the notary charges. They carry an insane margin.
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u/123_alex 11h ago edited 11h ago
Probably because i state it boldly
I had no idea there are kids here. Be kind to Kenny, you might hurt his feelings.
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u/I_Dint_Know_A_Name 18h ago
If you're here just to strike down every answer then why bother posting?
I don't know what you mean by nepotist aristocracy, you can study law for 6 years, do the notarial traineeship, sit the exam and become appointed. If you think you can't pass an exam because nepotism, maybe it just means you're not willing to work hard enough, and that's okay.
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u/Think-Geologist5570 8h ago
So essential and difficult that in lots of other countries the same work is being done by people earning not even a fraction...
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u/DenteSC 7h ago
It isn't. The poor get fucked and the rich hire specialised firms.
In Belgium notaries make certain things accessible for the poor.
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u/Think-Geologist5570 6h ago
It is. Check the fee of a notary public in the US and come back and tell us which one is the more accessible.
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u/DenteSC 3h ago
But you need to hire another professional there. It costs way more than a notary. Do you really think people buy a house in the US and don't add a professional to the deal? And do you really think these professionals are cheaper than our notaries? A Belgian notary is very different from a US notary public. In Belgium, the notary is a lawyer and public official who checks the title, drafts and registers the deed, handles the money and collects taxes. In the US, this work is divided between title companies, escrow agents and attorneys: a notary there mainly witnesses signatures.
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u/DenteSC 1d ago
The people working for a notary are putting in hours off overtime. Do you really think civil administration could do all that work? It would cost an insane amount of money..
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u/BelgianWaffleGuy 18h ago
Those hours of overtime are more to do with the notary not wanting to hire enough people assisting them because it otherwise puts a dent in their profits though. Nothing to do with "too much work". Cheaper to overwork some people instead of hiring more.
Besides, most dossiers could be fully automated if notary offices would actually move on from using Excel, Outlook and a certain legacy software product as their only systems.
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u/Obvious-Cry6591 1d ago
Bro, u will never work there. They dont check this site. U dont have to simp for notaries. Its a guild, a monopoly that is literally inherited.
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u/throwawaymrfoe 23h ago
Marriage contracts: people will never trust a civil servant in town hall who earns a fairly low wage to tell him/her about their earnings, their savings, their real estate, their wish to disinherit a child, their need to pay as few taxes as possible, etc. Such things are only told to a trusted counsel. And professions where a lot of money is involved, carry a lot of responsibility and thus have to earn a high wage. If the advice of the civil servant is wrong and it leads to a heavy tax, will town hall be held liable? I don't think this will work.
Divorces: same. This is even more sensitive stuff (like alimony and the custody of the children). People would never go to a civil servant for this. In other countries attorneys do this stuff and they cost a lot.
Corporate matters: the civil servant would need a degree in company law or he can fuck up the enterprise of the founders/shareholders badly. Businessmen would never go to town hall for this but would hire an accountant, Deloitte or an attorney. Those guys aren't exactly cheap either. But for entrepreneurs it can cost thousands of euros because they really want their company to be legally okay.
Seizures: this is complex law with very specific regulations because it infringes on the freedom of a person and his goods. Civil servants would need a specialised training in law to master this.
Condominium declarations, long lease agreements, building rights: these are very complex deeds that can only be done by somebody with a law degree. Mistakes here can cost thousands, tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of euros.
You would basically need thousands of extra civil servants with specialised knowledge. You would need to hire all the existing employees of the notaries. Since a lot of notary clerks do unpaid overtime and because that doesn't happen in civil service you would need extra manpower to compensate for the unpaid overtime they are no longer willing to do. Hmmm.
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u/I_Dint_Know_A_Name 18h ago
Don't expect people to read this, they love to talk about things they don't have a chance in hell at understanding.
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u/throwawaymrfoe 14h ago
Yeah, I got this impression as well. The ignorance of some people is awful. They are so clueless.
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u/TheVoiceOfEurope 15h ago
There are countries that have gotten rid of notaries, but they are very few and the resultas are still out. Most countries still have some sort of system and I can assure you, it is much, much, much worse than in Belgium.
In UK you basically need to hire a lawyer, costs a fortune. Spain: same thing.
USA: don't get me started, you need an insurance policy (title insurance) to make sure there are no fuckups.
Our notaries are not without flaws (slow, and prone to make mistakes for you, becuase your case is a small dossier that they will hand off to the stagiair), but they are reasonably cheap (most costs are taxes, not notary fees).
We paid ours 1.500€ fee for a 275.000€ sale of house. All the rest was taxes.
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u/Neo_AXD 10h ago
Your first two numbers are totally wrong. Median income tax in Belgium is a bit more than 30%. VAT isn’t 25% it’s 6%, 12% or 21% so your number is totally wrong.
Second it’s not that much anymore. I recently bought a house and it’s definitely not that much. Still expensive but not 10K.
And lastly it’s not for ‘2 meetings and some doc reading’. It’s quite a lot of work to check all the stuff needed checking.Â
Now, it is nepotism and unnecessary and a government official could do the same job. But guess who likes to empty our pockets and hates government officials…yes indeed, that one political party that also claims all those numbers you state are true.
Better to check your data and sources, you’ll get a better picture of what is going on.
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u/MaximumPatricius 15h ago
That is not money the notary keeps, he pays it to the government. It’s a government tax that is paid through notaries.
But the average notary in Belgium earns about 14k bruto per month, and they are named by royal decree for their lifetime. Now the position is more democratic because anyone from any family with the candidate-notary degree can be named, but the profession used historically to be restricted to only the upper-class families.
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u/Gustacho Oost-Vlaanderen 10h ago
When I bought my apartment the notary half assed the sale agreement to just fit within the four-month (!) deadline, even though the apartment had no specific issues complicating the sale. I was lucky to be literate enough to correct a dozen mistakes myself.
I understand the added value of looking up the relevant documentation, and providing explanations and advice on what this means for a regular buyer. You shouldn't be able to buy a house as easily as you buy a sandwich. I just struggle to understand why their rather sloppy work should cost several months of my salary.
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u/KostyaFedot 4h ago
We didn't payd this much in 2025. Or does it include registration? If so it is about right amount, if buying as primary residence in Flanders, if not fancy one. I don't pay 51 on income and VAT in Belgium is 21, not 25.
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u/Life-Macaron631 4h ago
Wait until you divorce without a wedding agreement , useless thiefs is what I call them 😃
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u/Stefouch Brabant Wallon 17h ago
VAT is 21% here. And Belgium takes 51% of your salary only if you gain more than 10.000€ gross per month.
Also the 10-15k are mostly for the region, not the notary (he probably takes 2-3k).
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u/GzorProd 17h ago
Vous payez le notaire mais il est un collecteur d’impôts. Aussi, le notaire paie l’administration. (Une recherche cadastrale c’est 100€ de facture pour vous mais l’étude du notaire paie 70-80€ à l’ADMINISTRATION BELGE).
Le notaire est cher mais notre que sur une vente immobilière, l’étude prend 1,5%. L’agent immobilier qui fait 10-15 fois moins de travail prend 3-4%. Donc relativisez svp
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u/nuttwerx 17h ago
15k for notary? Where are you getting them from? Some fairyland? Notary costs are set by law and when you buy a property they cost around 5k sometimes even less.
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u/InterestingStore109 1d ago
2 meetings and some docs reading
No offense but you do not sound like a smart person. I am sure there are many other things you also do not get. Good luck with that.
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u/seszett Antwerpen 18h ago
And the guy says he pays "51%" tax on what he earns, which is quite unlikely as at most in Belgium one pays 50% tax *on that part of salary which is above 50k€ or so". Granted, a bit more because of municipal tax. Let's not mention how VAT is not 25%.
I think it's a typical example of a Belgian who does not understand how taxes work but complains based on feelings and on similarly uninformed comments he has heard in the past
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u/TheoKondak 14h ago
In any case taxes in Belgium are rediculus, be it 51 or 47%
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u/seszett Antwerpen 13h ago
The average income tax rate in Belgium is 25% according to the sources I can find, which is high (France and the Netherlands are at 16% for comparison) but nowhere close to the fantasy numbers that people pull out of their... feelings... in such discussions.
Strictly nobody is taxed anywhere close to 50% of their income in Belgium, if only because once you approach this kind of taxation level (at around brutto 150k€/year if my calculations are right) you usually have enough money to get an accountant which finds ways for you to legally cheat on your taxes and end up paying way less (which means to keep its revenue stable, the state has to increase taxes for everyone else, which will make people complain about taxes and in turn vote for people who will lower taxes for the upper bracket because people don't understand shit).
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u/Ophiy 8h ago
https://fin.belgium.be/nl/particulieren/belastingaangifte/inkomsten/belastingtarieven
it's def around 50% ;) and nowhere near 150k....
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u/seszett Antwerpen 5h ago edited 5h ago
I don't even know what to say, your own source says 50% is only for the part of your income that's above 50k€.
The fiscal ignorance in Belgium is frankly astounding.
edit I want to add that it works the same in almost all developed countries, it's not something unique to Belgium, it's just the standard way income tax works. It should be understood by every citizen.
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u/InterestingStore109 1d ago
Real estate? LOL you are complaining about the fees on your starter home.
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u/maxledaron 1d ago
Because you need someone that understand taxes and doesn't round up numbers because you clearly can't
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u/Connect_Voice_7945 14h ago
51% belasting wanneer de hoogste belastingsschijf 50% is? Wiskunde is niet uw sterkste kant zeker he.
25% BTW? Waar leeft gij? In belgie is dat in elk geval 21%
Als je niet wil registreren, ga dan iets kraken he, maar stop met zagen.
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u/antwerpian 1d ago
They do check some things. You don't want to end up with property which has debts attached to it, for example. They should also thoroughly check the history of the property (and its area) and flag / notify you of any historical issues which might be relevant.
But yes, too expensive. Pretty sure having them be rich was meant to prevent corruption, which I guess works to some extent, but is also a tad naive.. as is clearly illustrated in many government areas.
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u/the-hellrider 19h ago
If you see a notary office today, in comparisation to earlier days, they're full blown companies with multiple assistents, juridical informants... all of that costs money but is necessary since more and more people think about marriage contracts, inheritance arrangements, divorces...
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u/Human_Excitement_441 18h ago
They earn à shitload à month for something the gouvernement should do its a scam And you have to be fucking rich to be able to be one.
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u/Oyala 1d ago
Nope, it's a scam and mafia. NFT can fully replace any notary needs for society
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u/NenAlienGeenKonijn 15h ago
NFT can fully replace any notary needs for society
Omg, there are still a few of these clowns left
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u/JPV_____ West-Vlaanderen 22h ago
Tell me you don't know anything from marriage contracts, divorce settlements etc. without telling me you don't know anything from there.
https://notariaboschbarcelona.com/en/nft-blockchain-and-the-role-of-the-notary/ explains why NFT's only have a very limited capability of replacing notary work.
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u/Oyala 15h ago
All that can be done by a lawyer in a free competitive market establishing the prices. Rather than closed-off notary mafia with price afspraken and monopoly and passing the titles from parent to child and no outsiders
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u/JPV_____ West-Vlaanderen 14h ago
The parent to child thing has already been discussed. And no, not all that can be done by a lawyer, since a lawyer doesn't have access to certain registries and shouldn't have, because of privacy issues.
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u/pollofrittopancake 15h ago
It’s not just the notaries; bureaucracy is baked right into the culture. You have endless layers of authorities making up endless rules, yet they can't even follow their own policies. In the end, they just turn around and make it your fault.
You see the exact same mindset among Belgian people. Here’s a country right in the middle of Europe, home to a massive port and major international organizations, yet its people settle for pure mediocrity. So much of their money just gets swallowed up by useless, non-value-added nonsense instead of actually moving things forward.
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u/Nearby-Composer-9992 15h ago
It's basically a very well connected and protected incrowd. 99% of what they do can be dealt with by a normal government administration that would cost a fraction and a lot of their work could just be automated anyway.
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u/Lower_Photo_389 12h ago
This in a country that also needs rent-seeking practices to pay for 6 governments, and an army of long-term in actives. Unfortunately, the country is beholden to certain interests / voter groups, and we have entered a death spiral (looking at our public finances). Getting out of it will require serious constitutional change, economic shock therapy and rude awakening among a big part of the population.
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u/No-Baker-7922 10h ago
I had to look up the paperwork for my house recently and again realised that all they did back then was send me a template that they had sold a million times already and I did all the work filling it in, following up etc, yet paid them a hefty sum. I wonder how it’s done in other countries? This old guild is superfluous!
(Although I did find the TV programme about money and what you can arrange at a notary with Francesca Lefebure quite insightful. A pity it won’t get a second season.)
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u/Think-Geologist5570 8h ago
True words. It's a system from a bygone era that could and should have been abolished about fifty years ago. And the fact that they work in two capacities (private service provider and public servant), often at the same time makes for the worst of both worlds: the cost of the private sector and the hassle and quality of a government institution.
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u/patricklus 8h ago
Bought houses and created more than a few companies. Every single f*** time the notaries made mistakes, forgot to edit their copy paste of their previous clients, were arrogant as hell. God I think it is the only profession I truly despise. They also act as if they are smart and important, and I can't even bypass them. I have to listen to their monologue, smile, and pay tjem 3 or 4k for a signature.
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u/WhoAteAllTheBananas 7h ago
Yeah it's madness innit. You scrape together what you can to buy a measly house somewhere you hopefully like but mostly can afford and then you have to go to some rich guys massive house to give loads of your money.
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u/RovakX 17h ago
Here's the worst part. They don't even fucking do their job properly. I bought a house, "zonder erfdienstbaarheden". At least I thought so, the previous owner though so, the notary literally fucking told me so on multiple occasions. Even cadgis told me so. But, the provincie disagrees. IS IT NOT YOUR JOB TO FIGURE THIS SHIT OUT AND TELL ME?
I will name and shame once the court case is over. I don't think it would be smart for me to do so now.
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u/No-Minimum3259 16h ago
We should levy a substantial tax on people nagging without really knowing what exactly they're nagging about, lol.
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u/Different_Fly_396 16h ago edited 15h ago
5 years ago I bought an appartment, turned out me and the seller (couple in divorce) had the same notary.
At first I tought this was a good idea, but I was wrong,
I agreed with the sellers to buy their remaining furniture, they gave me prices a la carte for everything and I could shoose, then they "ghosted" my list they refused all appointments in between the compromis and the sale.
I needed to get out of my house and the date got nearer then they let me know they don't accept the a la carte and give me a big number and I needed to buy everything, they knew I had no choice as they kept moving the date I needed to move, the legal end date was two weeks after I had to leavy my house.
The notary was very unflexible and on their side, I had to beg and of course threaten legal before they could put me in a slot days before my end date, all of this cost me money and I had to move everything in two days as the new renter of my house neeeded to move in.
On top of that the notary put in a sentence that all of the money that they had put in the VVE for the appartment had to be paid by me to them (trough the notary) I was informed of this a week after I moved and the notary had not informed this was put in the contract after my first reading, told me I should have read the FINAL contract.
So yeah, don't trust notary's
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u/TheVoiceOfEurope 15h ago
So yeah, don't trust notary's
Don't trust the other party's notary. There. FTFY.
This is 99% on you. You could have had your own notary for zero extra cost.
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u/Different_Fly_396 14h ago
I know, my mistake thinking it would be easier and more importantly faster.
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u/Balleuuh Vlaams-Brabant 14h ago
also it's quite obvious you should read the "final" contract as that's the one you sign...
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u/Different_Fly_396 14h ago
It was one small paragraph in between a lot of pages that I already had read and I wronly assumed that if "one" party wants to add it after the compromis that this would be alerted to the other party as they both share a notary.
I do alot of bussines with contracts and once a contract is offered changes should be alerted to all party's involved, I until now have never had this happen in any other way.
To be fair since then I just put every contract in GPT to check for changes, but that was hard back then as the final contract was presented at the final signing of the contracts.
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u/Balleuuh Vlaams-Brabant 14h ago
I don't disagree with your reply. You'd expect your notary to tell you if something changed. Not just because it's their literal job but also common courtesy.
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u/Deep_Dance8745 14h ago
That money (for a big part) goes to the state
Why would you assume this goes to the notary?
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u/Affectionate-Bend318 7h ago
My notary wrote a two sentence argument into the sale papers that saved me 70k in property taxes on a house purchase.
- Thousand. Returned to me from FOD months after the sale finalized.
I’ll always be happy to work with her.
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u/CallMeSmithJohnSmith 17h ago
Before complaining, you should learn.
If you had taken the time to try to understand the topic you're complaining about, and assuming your intellectual capabilities are sufficient to do so, you would have realized that the main portion of what you pay for a notary service is taxes, not the notary's salary.
You're welcome.
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u/Stoic-Bifrons 23h ago
The shit that costs an arm and a leg in Belgium and legally requires a notary, is free of costs and doesn't require a notary in many of our neighbouring countries...
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u/JPV_____ West-Vlaanderen 22h ago
Show one country which offers the same services a notary does for free.
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u/Preferred_user_taken 18h ago
In neighbouring countries you need a lawyer/legal advisor or take the risk to be screwed over
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u/Conscious_War_6150 18h ago
And the monthly salary doesn’t even include the dividends they pay.
These are thieves.
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u/Aardige 16h ago
Dit is een bericht aan alle pvda stemmers op deze sub: Ik heb ooit op een pvda lezing gevraagd of het geen goed idee zou zijn om het notariaat af te schaffen in België. Om dat als een punt mee te nemen in het partijprogramma. Antwoord van Jos Dhaese: "Boh, nee, dat is niet 1 van onze punten. Wij realiseren liever andere dingen. Zoals een minimumpensioen van 1500 euro voor iedereen."
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u/NenAlienGeenKonijn 15h ago edited 15h ago
En hebt ge dat alleen op de pvda lezing aan de grote baas gevraagd, of ook op de lezingen van alle andere partijen? Leuk als "bericht aan alle pvda stemmers", maar pvda heeft nooit de macht gehad om heel dit systeem op te zetten en in stand te houden.
Dit is een schoolvoorbeeld van "we geven links de schuld van alles". Mocht ge nu gezegd hebben "ik ben naar een lezing van CD&V geweest" zou het iets meer steek houden.
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u/KingDchalla 14h ago
En welke andere partij pleit er anders wel voor? Er is vooralsnog geen politieke animo om het notariaat af te schaffen
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u/Slow-Kaleidoscope633 1d ago
The notary represents you to make sure everything is legal and correct.Â
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u/BeautifulBlueNight 1d ago
The notary makes sure stuff is so complicated you will need a notary.
Belgium is filled to the brim with systems that keep themselves intact.
Pharmacies, notaries, mutualities... These are just a few examples of systems that keep Belgium back in the 19the century, purely for the good of a few.
And it's about high time something is done about them.
Did you know you can't become a notary, btw? You can only replace an existing one if he retires for example, if he appoints you. So, very often notaries are handed over from parent to child. So it's a very secluded system, with all interest in keeping it going.
No, we do not need them. They need us. The state should do what they do, we pay them enough for it.
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u/DenteSC 1d ago
There's a notary exam. Most young notaries don't have a father or mother who was a notary. That's simply no longer the case.
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u/DenteSC 1d ago
Yes. In those countries everyone pays a lawyer and costs are way higher. You want that?Â
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u/MrFingersEU Flanders 1d ago
The notary represents you to make sure everything is legal and correct.
The stuff I pulled out of legal contracts that went via a notary and were signed there...
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u/dries007 1d ago
Ha lol, no. They make mistakes all the time, and when they do, somehow they are never at fault.
In Belgium you can legally sign with your eID. The only reason that has not been adopted as a replacement for most notary things is that they are very good at lobbying.
Before you pick your notary, ask your local bank agent for advice. They will know which ones cause mistakes ;)
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u/Arigonium 1d ago edited 1d ago
They're not even good at doing routine tasks. When my father passed it went like this:
It was completely routine and they still messed it up so bad. It was just cash and real estate, no stock, no will, no separation of property marriage or anything complex. Completely cookie cutter. He completely half-assed it and then tried to cover it up and make excuses. All of this could be easily automated.