Notaries, acting as associates of Lawyers and Law Firms

The institutional position of a notary within the Greek legal system: description and role according to the latest provisions of the law.

Oikonomakis Law partners with all sorts of Technical Advisors (by showing immense respect to their Scientific Ethics and Independence) in a way that – through an ongoing dialogue with them – we shall be able to deliver to our clients solutions to even their most complex issues.

Oikonomakis Law, along with notaries, associates of ours in Greece, has been providing services regarding the drafting of title deeds and contracts to be finally signed covering in this way the whole prospect of legal-judicial-notarial needs.

IN PARTICULAR NOTARIES ARE ABLE TO PROVIDE SERVICES REGARDING:

• Real estate properties sales
• Parental donors
• Charity donations
• Contractual agreements
• Distributions – Exchanges of Plots of land
• Formation of apartments and buildings
• Seizures of plots of land
• Deeds of donations – Removal of mortgages
• Establishment of companies via One-Stop-Shop procedures
• Modifications- Codifications of Statutes
• Mergers of company formations-Company alterations
• Termination of Companies
• Procedures of registering works of intellectual property
• Deeds of succession
• Deeds of succession bearing the benefit of reservation
• Partnership Agreements
• Deeds related to child recognition
• Affidavits
• Proxies

According to article 1 of law 2830/2000 the way the latter has been amended in several occasions, and as this is currently valid as the “Code of Notaries” their duties may as well be described in detail as follows.

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According to article 1 of law 2830/2000 the way the latter has been amended in several occasions, and as this is currently valid as the “Code of Notaries” their duties may as well be described in detail as follows

To begin with, a Notary constitutional-wise is a public servant whose specific and particular mandate is to prepare and secure documents, of the sort that substantiate or merely prove agreements and statements at all times when such a thing is compulsory to take place, or whenever the involved parties wish to embrace documents in such an official way which is that of a stately produced document.

Furthermore, within the framework of the Notary’s mandate it is the issuance of official documents and proper copies of the just aforementioned documents, as well as copies of attached thereto documents.

In addition, a Notary shall be stamping documents by providing on them certain time and date in order to further verify the validity of signatures on each and every document related to a certain deed that is to be properly prepared by him/ her.

Finally, a Notary acts in any given way when such a deed is by law to be prepared by him/ her, as well as any other deed that is related to his/ her institutional working presence.

For instance, it forms part of a Notary’s mandate to translate in the Greek language documents prepared in the first place in a foreign language and have been presented to him/her, as long as these documents have been considered to be useful in order to prepare a deed, by also verifying the validity of such documents within the mandate of his/her work.

In Greece Notaries are not supposed to be expert in certain fields of their work, the way, for instance, happens within the Anglo-Saxon perception of their mandate, however this is something on which to elaborate further on.

In every Magistrate, which is the Court of the ground level of jurisdiction in terms of the Greek judicial system, a seat is reserved for a Notary who is supposed to fill it in properly after the issuance of a relevant Presidential Decree.

Organically speaking, the Ministry bearing the authority to deal with the status of Notaries within the framework of the Greek legal system is that of Justice, Transparency and Human Rights [the way it is officially coined in Greece]

In Greece there are nine (9) Notarial Associations that have been formed and have been operating in terms of Court of Appeals.

The institution of Notaries within the establishment and operation of the Greek state is based upon two main pillars, namely that of pre-emptive justice and in addition, that of fiscal policy given that the Notary is that institutional body of the state that practically assists in terms of tax revenue collection and in the every-day practice of fiscal policy, In particular:

Via notaries the state is able to control the fulfilment of all tax related obligations, e.g. with regards to successions, lease agreements, major real estate properties, the incomes of Municipalities and Local Communities or of Foundations or of Social Security Pension Authorities  etc.

It is via notaries that the state overviews the proper application of laws regarding issues of national security in terms of properties to be purchased within “sensitive” areas e.g. at the country’s borders, or the actual practice of the farming policy via Land Registries and Cadastres, or the application of the provisions of urban planning legislation and of the forests etc.

A notary is to be appointed, only after a certain procedure has been followed and by firmly confirming that, first of all, he/she is of Greek nationality or of the nationality of a member-state of the EU, as well as by confirming that he/ she is a law school graduate of a national or foreign university which definitely has to be officially recognized as a valid one, thus of the same upper level.

A Notary is to be appointed only after having concluded 28 years of age, while at the same time, he/ she must not be over 42 years of age, and only after having successfully sat exams of the highest national level which had been organized under the auspices of the Minister of Justice.

The Notarial systems currently operating on a worldwide scale may as well be differentiated according to certain criteria, however the two most common ones could be described as follows: the byzantine or latin one, which has to be considered way accurate and which  is the system followed by the Greek School, and the Anglo-Saxon one which is completely different in terms of organization, formation and function; the latter system is considered to be insufficient given that it does not actually provide for the security of the people, in light of the fact that the Notaries are not considered to be public servants, but rather legal experts, who merely  do their job without being obliged anyhow to bear constitutional authorities the way the former system expects and ensures them to do so.

During these last years the Notaries have been further empowered through new legislation and their participation in terms of actually practicing state power has been increased e.g. through the establishment of the “One-Stop-Shop” procedure in terms of the Hellenic Registry of Commerce, as well as in terms of being able to establish general or limited partnership companies, or even Private Companies, in Greek coined as “I.K.E”, via a notarial deed, thus the notary is to be appointed as the point of reference and the one in charge of the process and not just of the preparation of the Statute of the company

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