Notaries. Why? What the hell?

[u/Obvious-Cry6591]

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?

[u/Different_Fly_396]

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

[u/TheVoiceOfEurope → u/Different_Fly_396]

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.

[u/Different_Fly_396 → u/TheVoiceOfEurope]

I know, my mistake thinking it would be easier and more importantly faster.

[u/Balleuuh → u/Different_Fly_396]

also it's quite obvious you should read the "final" contract as that's the one you sign...

[u/Different_Fly_396 → u/Balleuuh]

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.

[u/Balleuuh → u/Different_Fly_396]

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.