The notary
Buying a house and applying for a mortgage; donate the house to one of the children; establish a company or make a will. What are the risks involved in carrying out these operations? Are you aware of all the obstacles and pitfalls caused by constantly evolving and not always easy to understand laws?
The notary, a public official who by law must be super partes and therefore protect the parties in equal measure, to whom the State also entrusts the collection of taxes, for economically significant activities and operations.
Because concluding a sale, a mortgage, a donation, a company deed of incorporation or drawing up a will does not mean completing and printing a form already prepared, but preparing a secure, valid and unassailable deed over time .
To carry out this role, the State requires the notary to have a high level of legal knowledge , guaranteed by passing a public competition managed directly by the Ministry of Justice and subjecting the notary to continuous checks carried out by state entities.
The function
The notary is a public official to whom the State entrusts the power to attribute public faith , that is, the value of legal proof, to the acts he stipulates. Therefore everyone - including the judge - must assume that what is attested by him is true.
The public deed proves:
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the provenance of the document from the public official who formed it,
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the declarations of the parties contained therein,
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other facts that the public official claims to have happened in his presence or even to have been committed by him.
For this reason, the notary must personally ascertain what is the will of his clients and the purpose to be achieved, in order to prepare the most suitable and economical deed, in compliance with the law . To this end, the notary's consultancy activity is essential before signing the deed.
In exercising his function, the notary must be, by law, independent and impartial : he must therefore protect the interests of all contracting parties equally, regardless of who has appointed him.
It therefore performs a preventive control function of legality .
The notary has a duty to enforce the laws and cannot and must not receive acts prohibited by law.