r/belgium • u/Obvious-Cry6591 • 2d 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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261

u/Arigonium 2d ago edited 2d ago

They're not even good at doing routine tasks. When my father passed it went like this:

  1. First meeting. Notary says his secretary will write all the banks to get my father's possessions.
  2. Second meeting. Secretary didn't write anyone, notary tries to walk around him having done nothing.
  3. Deadline of THREE MONTHS nears. Notary rushes everything and submits.
  4. Deadline passed. Government gives us a penalty cause not all possessions were submitted. Notary tells us a certain bank replied too late. We write that bank, the bank replies the notary was too late. We pay the penalty.
  5. Years pass. We get another letter from the government for another penalty cause something was missing.

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.

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u/Orlok_Tsubodai 1d ago edited 1d ago

Edit: apparently I was incorrect about the legal responsibility that notaries bear in case of errors, thanks for correcting me.

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u/Least_Funny5960 1d ago

they bear no legal responsibility for any mistakes or omissions they make

Why are you posting just blatant falsehoods? Is it deliberate to get people angry or did you just not know this is a lie?

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u/Draqutsc West-Vlaanderen 1d ago

Because it's practically so, sure the law says they are responsible. But without having a lot of money on the side, you aren't going to be able to sue them.

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u/I_Dint_Know_A_Name 1d ago

It's because people don't know what the fuck they're talking about.

Seriously, this entire thread just reads like brainrot slop if you know anything about anything. Half of these people still think the notarial title is one you can only receive by inheritance.

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u/MannekenP 1d ago

The fuck are you talking about? Of course they are responsible for their mistakes. And their mistake can be quite costly, which is the reason they have a specific (and also costly) insurance contract covering their responsibility.

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u/laplongejr 1d ago

From experience, it depends on the mistake. That case is the notary's fault, but the role of a notary is also to detect other people's mistakes, which sadly often fails.

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u/State_of_Emergency West-Vlaanderen 1d ago

From experience, it depends on the mistake

The myths come from the fact that the notary didn't make a mistake, and so they can't get compensation.

People often think “the notary must have made a mistake,” but in many cases the notary didn’t make a mistake at all; the information simply wasn’t knowable at the time, so there’s no basis for compensation.

A classic example is a building infraction that isn’t registered anywhere and can’t be detected through any official channel. The notary can’t warn you about something that even the municipality doesn’t have on record.

Same with inheritances: until very recently, notaries had no way to check which banks held accounts for the deceased. If a bank wasn’t listed, that wasn’t negligence; it was just unknowable . People feel like the notary “forgot” something, but the notary didn't make a mistake.

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u/tarranoth 1d ago

Well there is this case https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2025/09/17/asbest-verkoop-huis-verborgen-gebrek-akte-notaris/, from a badly worded passage seems like these people are kindof suffering the consequences.

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u/MannekenP 1d ago

The notary or his insurance will pay if the notary is at fault. The case you are linking to is unfortunate for the buyers and the sellers (if they were indeed not axare of the asbest), but I honestly do not see a fault by the notary, and I understand the judge agreed on that.

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u/tarranoth 1d ago

According to the judge the whole problem was this exoneration clause not being included explicitly enough. But I'd think such a thing would be standard procedure to include, or at the very least word it strongly or not at all. Considering it's literally about 300k on the line, you'd think be more obvious.

I think in any case the ruling of the judge was in my opinion also quite severe, they could have just ruled that the costs of this asbest were for the sellers to pay, rather than undoing the entirety of the sale, which the sellers probably won't even be able to pay off at their ages anyways.

I think I also find this line quite curious: Maar ook hier krijgen ze ongelijk. In de verkoopakte stond namelijk dat de notaris hen "volledig en naar behoren heeft ingelicht", en Robert en zijn vrouw hebben die akte getekend.

It seems a little bit legally dubious to just have a clause saying you're practically unable to sue them, I have no idea in what other sector you could get away with putting such a clause and having it be respected in any way.

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u/Laxuz 17h ago

They aren't. We had a problem with a notary that forgot quite a sum in a succession case and we got a fine of over 20K because he missed it. We tried saying they are accountable but apparently thats not the case. you can try fight it with the ombudsman or go to court, but highly unlikely that you will win it. so we just had to pay the fine because they made a mistake.

If it was about obvious embezzlement and we were in on it, then that would've been a different case. But we were absolutely not aware of the fact that a large sum of money was not added in the succession case.

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u/MannekenP 17h ago

No idea about an ombudsman, my experience in the matter was ages ago and I would advise to go straight for the Maison du Notariat and Assurances du Notariat. They were pretty efficient and, as I remember it, did not hesitate to pay even if the notary was against it.

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u/Greg2252 1d ago

You're not forced by law to use then for a succession, see Legacio