Public Deeds

Drafting public deeds is one of the core activities of a civil law notary. A document is considered a public deed if it was recorded by a notary following the notarisation procedures laid down in the Notarial Code in compliance with all major formal requirements.

Public notarial deeds may be:

• Notarial acts
• Notarisations of legally relevant acts
• Notarial minutes

Public deeds furnish conclusive evidence of the "authenticity" and "correctness" of a document. They create the assumption that the deed stems from the person identified as the issuer ("authenticity"). They also create the assumption that the contents of the deed are accurate ("correctness"). Whenever a civil law notary drafts a public deed, he must comply with stringent verification and instruction requirements.When drafting notarial acts, civil law notaries must establish the facts, find out the "genuine intention" of the contracting parties and lay down their findings in a legally valid form. The civil law notary must instruct the parties on the legal meaning and the legal consequences arising from a transaction. In practice, notarial instruction also covers the financial consequences of such transaction.

The law rightly prescribes the involvement of a civil law notary for a number of transactions:

• Civil law
• Company law
• Enforceability

Notarial acts may be designed as titles of execution (enforceable notarial act). The enforceable notarial act carries all the advantages of a court ruling without being the result of litigation. It is low-cost way of creating an executory title.