Why is the notary making 2%?!
Is that including all legal fees?
Even still that seems like a much bigger rip off than a buyer's agent in the US.
Is that including all legal fees?
Even still that seems like a much bigger rip off than a buyer's agent in the US.
No idea why it is always everybody else who should work for free.
In all seriousness, notaries in Germany are all full lawyers and practices are highly sought after, as the numbers of lisvensed notaries is limited.
You have to pass an exam, same as a public servant, and the number of positions is limited. But you don't have a regular salary like any other public servant: you set up a private office and get the money directly from your clients.
The price for the actions is regulated but it's high, and the number of licenses is limited, so generally they have hefty salaries, specially compared to the rest of the public servants and the mean of the population.
Their salary can be very variable based on location (as you get the money directly from your clients), but it's said to typically be from 100K to 200K€
It looks like they need a law degree, too, so I'm sure they offer legal services other than property transactions?
By contrast, civil law notaries are generally full-on lawyers who are trained and intended to perform several legal tasks.
That would make more sense for the 2% but it's not related to the notary in the US; notary literally just does "I checked the id of the person signing and it matches" which is a service that can be had for free at your bank or at most $50 if you have to pay someone, 2% of a house for that service obviously wouldn't make sense.
By the way, excerpts of the registry for the real estate in question are part of the sales contract (just remembered).
The case of title insurance is only where something weirder happens with wills, contracts, or liens. If there was an owner that died in 2016 and his will said "split my house to all surviving children". And at the time one child shows up who believes they are the sole surviving descendant and claims the house and sells it in 2017, then 2018 a second heir finds out their estranged parent died and shows up to say "actually half of this house was mine, that guy didn't legally have the right to sell it even without any fraud occuring".
Title insurance ends up 'fixing' this problem so that the buyer and actual-should-have-been-owner can both be made whole (and they go after the seller for the amount they didn't actually own, but sometimes that won't be possible to recover). If you don't have title insurance you as the buyer just take the liability that you might not actually own the house (or part of the house) if the record was mistaken and needs to be corrected.
In Germany would this just be a case where if the will is executed and you find out too late the inheritor would be screwed with no way to get what you owned instead?
In Spain the notary "just" works through the signature of the contract:
- Checks the identities of the parties and their legal status
- Makes "sure" both parties understand the contract
- Verifies that the property can be sold (checks for legal issues in the national registry)
- Serves as a legal witness to the signature
- Sends a copy of the contract to the national registry (but AFAIK, doesn't follow up)
Then you have to contact a registrar to make all the legal papers to make all the legal papers in the national registry. That's araound 300-400 €, I think.
They could open this to competition and let lawers do the job as well, but that would go down badly with the notaries who make a fortune.
It's an expensive, but essential step in Germany.
Because there isn't a default real estate purchase contract, so you need to trust that you'll receive the property. It's like paying a lawyer to mediate an expensive purchase, and they carry some legal risks with it.
They also do the bureaucracy with the government to add your name to the Grundbuch (it's a book from the government about who owns what % of a property), and also clean up the previous debts that it had (they are written there).