Profession

Notaries in Belgium: role, notarial companies, fees

A notary is a public officer with fees set by a legal scale. Notarial companies, free choice of office and what a €300,000 purchase costs in notary fees.

Checked on against the sources at the bottom of the page.

In short

To buy a property in Belgium, the sale deed is signed before a notary, a public officer who gives neutral advice. Notaries’ fees follow a legal scale that is the same for everyone. For a €300,000 purchase, the notary’s fees and administrative costs come to about €3,177 before VAT and the writing fee, and about €3,944 once these are added (Payotte’s calculation), registration duties excluded. A notary may practise in a company, whose name must carry the words “notaires associés” or “société notariale”. With few exceptions, you choose your notary freely.

What the notary does

The notary is a public officer, and notaire.be describes the advice you get there as coming from neutral experts. On a purchase, the notary works in several stages. Before the sale agreement is signed, the notary carries out searches; between the agreement and the deed, further ones (tax, mortgage, town-planning and cadastral searches). Notaire.be stresses that the sale agreement binds the parties and that the notary relies on it to draw up the authentic deed. The deed is filed with the registration administration within 15 days of signing, and the notary transcribes the property in the registers of the Legal Security office: from then on you are the owner in the eyes of third parties. Notaire.be mentions about four months from offer to signature.

For the detail of the steps and costs, see the guides the notary: role and fees and the sale agreement (compromis). For registration duties, see registration duties.

The title and where to check it

Notarial companies. The Ventôse Act (art. 50) provides that a notary can practise, alone or in association, through a company. It must be a private limited company or a cooperative company, and “the notary remains, nevertheless, personally the holder of the office of notary” (our translation). The company’s name is always followed by “notaires associés” or “société notariale” (art. 51). The articles of association are adopted subject to approval by the chamber of notaries. The passages we read do not require a person’s name to appear in the company name.

Who publishes what. The Royal Federation of Belgian Notaries (Fednot) runs the “Find a notarial office” directory on notaire.be: search by postcode or municipality, with a filter for approved mediators.

Where to check. Use the home page of notaire.be and its office search. Payotte does not link to a specific office page and does not reproduce the directory, because of the site’s terms of use, quoted here word for word (in French, our translation below):

« Si vous souhaitez les reproduire, les communiquer au public ou les utiliser à des fins commerciales, vous devez obtenir l’autorisation écrite expresse de “Fednot” […] » — “If you wish to reproduce them, communicate them to the public or use them for commercial purposes, you must obtain the express written authorisation of Fednot.”

« Vous pouvez placer sur votre site Internet un lien vers notaire.be, mais uniquement si la mention notaire.be apparaît sur la totalité de l’écran du navigateur et que l’adresse (URL) du site Internet reste visible. Vous ne pouvez référencer d’autres hyperliens qu’après approbation écrite expresse de Fednot. » — “You may place a link to notaire.be on your website, but only if the mention notaire.be appears on the whole of the browser screen and the address (URL) of the website remains visible. You may reference other hyperlinks only after the express written approval of Fednot.”

Check the office you are offered yourself.

What it costs

Fees are set by a mandatory scale, laid down in a royal decree, for all notaries. For a private sale, the scale offers scale “J” (general) and the more favourable scale “J bis” for individuals buying in full ownership a property that will be their own and only home, if they settle in it within a year (the tariff’s own conditions; read the text for your case).

Example: purchase at €300,000, own and only home, scale J bis, registration duties excluded. The two items we checked in the tariff are the fee, €2,321.74, and the administrative costs, set at €855 excluding VAT for a sale of a building. Together: €3,176.74 before VAT. Payotte’s calculator adds the 21% VAT and a €100 writing fee and arrives at about €3,944 (€3,943.86) for the notary and the taxes on the deed.

That total does not include registration duties or disbursements (sums advanced to third parties), which vary with the file. For €300,000, Payotte’s calculator gives total purchase costs of €17,218 in Brussels, €13,718 in Wallonia and €10,618 in Flanders. For your case, use the purchase cost calculator. Only the firm’s own statement gives the exact amount, including the advance requested before the deed.

How Payotte chooses the firm

Payotte selects one notarial office per municipality, on a published scoring grid based only on public data. For notaries:

  • only notarial companies are selected, never a notary personally;
  • the listing carries the company’s name as it displays it. An office whose name uses a person’s name is not selected unless it itself shows a neutral trading name: Payotte never invents a name in place of the firm’s;
  • the title is displayed on the office’s own website; the listing sends you to the home page of notaire.be, never to an office page;
  • at most 3 listings per enterprise number;
  • since fees are the same everywhere, the ranking is not about price, and it is never paid for.

Payotte does not guarantee the status of any office: the check is yours.

Questions to ask

  • Can you give me a detailed statement (fees, VAT, disbursements, writing fee) before the sale agreement?
  • What advance do you ask for, and what is it for?
  • Which scale applies to my file, J or J bis, and what must I do to keep it?
  • What is the expected time between the sale agreement and the deed?
  • Can I choose a notary other than the seller’s?
  • Who in the office will follow my file from day to day, and in which language?

Frequently asked questions

Can I negotiate a notary’s fees?

No. Fees follow a mandatory scale, the same for all notaries. For some deeds the amounts are set by law, for others they are not, according to notaire.be.

Can the seller impose a notary on me?

No. Notaire.be answers that, with a few exceptions, you can choose the notary you want.

What does “société notariale” mean?

A notary can practise in a company. The words “notaires associés” or “société notariale” then follow the name, but the notary remains personally the holder of the office.

Is the notaire.be calculator exact?

No. Notaire.be calls its examples and results indicative: the exact amount is in the detailed statement the office gives you.

Is the notary also my adviser?

Notaire.be presents the notary as a neutral, independent adviser. Ask the office what it can do for you before you sign the sale agreement.

Sources