Notaries in Romania

There are about 2285 notaries in Romania, which are spread geographically throughout 377 cities on the romanian territory.

In Romania, the notary ("notar") is a liberal and independent professional, member of a professional organization, who produces documents of public authority, in the service of public interest.

The appointment in the position of notary public, the suspending and the ending of this quality certifies the double character of this position, where the notary is the titular of a service of public interest and, also a liberal professional, member of a professional organization.

In accordance with the stipulations of the Law of the Notary Publics and of the Notary Activity no. 36/1995, the notary public is appointed by the Minister of Justice, at the proposal of the Council of the National Union of the Romanian Notaries Public. In the same way, at the request of the Council of the National Union of the Romanian Notaries Public, the Minister of Justice orders the suspending from the position and, as the case may be, the ceasing of notary public’s capacity is ascertained or is ordered by the Minister of Justice.

The notary public’s activity is based on the petitioner's confidence, which is obtained if the notary public is a persuasive counselor and a discreet confident of the parties, able to explain them the legal regulations and to transpose their will in legal terms.

The position of notary Public is independent, thing that forbids any interference in drawing up the notaries documents and in the fulfillment of the procedures provided by the law that are in his/her competence. The principle of stability in this position is meant to guarantee the equity and the impartiality related a decision of the notary publics, in a word, their independence.

The notary public executes his/her duties that are granted him/her by law based on the status of his position and not based on a working contract that supposes a relation of subordination.

In the situation when he/she is requested to execute a document that infringes the legal provisions, the notary has at his hand, as an instrument, the conclusion of grounded rejection that can be appealed against by the interested party in front of the court of law.

The non-contentious character of the notary activity essentially separates the activity carried on by the notary publics from the activity carried on by the courts of law. The non-contentious activity carried on by the notary public with competence, impartiality avoids the starting of the litigations, and its purpose is the harmonization with the partie's interests. 

Competence

The apparition of the notary public profession in Romania was possible under the circumstances of the existence of a democratic society and of the law-based state, based on the principles of the market economy. 

Within this context, the material and territorial competence of the notary public is settled by means of the law related the notary activity organization.

Territorial competence

The territorial competence of the notary publics is determined by the circumscription of the court where the notary public Offices operates. The notary documents are executed at the headquarters of the notary office; within the limits of its territorial circumscription, the notary public can conclude any notary documents outside the notary’s office, if there is a greater number of interested persons or if the petitioner cannot be present. If in the court circumscription operates more notary offices, the territorial competence of each notary office is extended all over the circumscription. In Bucharest City, the territorial competence of the notary public offices extends all over the city.

Law no. 36/1995 institutes four cases of exceptional territorial competence:

a) the notary succession procedure is within the competence of the notary’s office within the territorial circumscription of the court of law where the deceased person had his/her last domicile;

b) in case of successive heritages, the heirs can chose any notary office within the territorial circumscription of the court of law where had the last domicile the one of the authors that died last;
c) protesting documents of the bills of exchange, of the promissory notes and of the checks are made by the notary office within the territorial circumscription of the court of law where the payment is to be done;

d) issuance of the duplicates and the rebuilding of the notary documents are executed by the notary’s office where is the original of these documents.

Material Competence

In principle, the material competence is general, any notary public being entitle to execute any notary document except those for which there is a special territorial competence.

Services

The notary public has material competence to execute the following documents: 

• drawing-up documents with legal content, at the request of the parties;
• authentication of the documents drawn-up by the notary public, by the petitioner or by the lawyer;
• the notaries procedure for successions;
• certification of certain facts, in the cases provided by law;
• authentication of signatures affixed on documents, of the sample of signatures, as well as of the seals;
• giving certified date to the documents submitted by parties;
• receiving in the archive of the documents and deeds submitted by parties;
• protesting documents of the bills of exchange, of the promissory note and of the checks;
• authentication of the copies of the original documents;
• execution and authentication of the translations;
• issuance of duplicates of the notaries documents that were drawn up by the Notary;
• any other operations stipulated by the law.

From all these operations the most important are the authentication of the documents and the procedure of succession.

Authentication of the documents

The documents drawn up by the notary public, by the lawyer of the interested parties or by the legal counselor or by the legal representative of the legal entity, as well as the documents processed by the persons that have superior legal education in which are presented as party, the spouses, their ascendants or their descendents, will be authenticated by the notary public based on the granted authority.

At the authentication of any document the notary public determines the identity of the parties and checks if they are capable. After the drawing up of the document and after this one is read to the parties, the notary public will ask them if they understood the content of the documents and if the contents of the documents expresses their will. This represents the taking of consent that is done in separate way for the persons affected by disabilities (blind and deaf-mute persons etc.).

Notaries procedure of succession

The notary's procedure of heritage is open, as it is the case, at the request of any interested party, of the prosecutor, as well as of the secretary of the local council where the deceased person had his/her last domicile, if in the heritage exits real estate assets.

In case of death of a person that hadn’t his/her last domicile in the country, the notary public from the territorial circumscription of the court of law where the deceased had the assets with the most significant value can make the succession procedure.

In the cases stipulated by the law or upon the request of the interested party, the notary public, in person or by a delegate, will carry out the inventory of the assets in heritage.

The notaries inventory it is carried out only with the agreement of the person that possesses the assets that belonged to the deceased.

If, on the occasion of the inventory, it is discovered a will let by the deceased, this will be stamped to remain unchanged by the notary public and will be filed with the archive of his/her notaries office.

In the circumstance where there is a danger of sale, loss, replacement or damage of the assets the notary public may put all the assets under seal or will hand them over to a special appointed custodian.

The amounts of money, the value papers, the checks or other values found during the time of inventory, are deposited in the notary's archive or at a specialized institution.

In the succession where there are clues that the deceased hadn’t heirs and this one is to be declared vacant, the notary public can hand over the provisory administration of the heritage assets to a curator appointed in this purpose, with a previous notice to the administrative authority.

The notary public will communicate to the legal successors, to the legatee and, as it is the case, to the administrators, the keeping intact measures taken with regard to the heritage assets.

The notary public determines by means of civil status documents and witnesses depositions the number and quality of the successors and legatees, the length of their rights, and by means of documents or by any other instruments of evidence admitted by law, the assets that compose the assets of heritage.

The acceptance of heritage, as well as the renunciation is to be done within 6 months term from the date of the death.

In case of existence of a will discovered during the inventory or presented by the interested party, the notary public proceed to its opening. If the will is handwritten or mystical, is ascertained its material status and is drawn-up a minute.

The procedure of heritage is finalized by issuing a successor or legatee certificate and if it wasn’t make the proof of existence of some assets in the patrimony of the deceased or if their determination demands long time operations, of the certificate related the successor capacity .

In the situation where was instituted an executor, a certificate that ascertains these qualities can be issued by the notary public, too.

In the absence of legal or will successors, upon the request of the state representative, the notary public ascertains that the heritage is vacant and issues a heritage vacancy certificate, after the expiration of the legal term of heritage acceptance.

After the issuance of the certificate of successor, of legatee, of heritage capacity or of heritage vacancy, the notary public cannot draw up another certificate for the same deceased person, except for the situations provided by law.

The successor certificate makes the full proof of successor capacity and of the quota share or of the assets that belong to each successor separately, until its cancellation by court decision.

In accordance with the legal regulations in force, the heritage is submitted, related the movable assets, wherever they are, to the national law of the deceased, and related to the real estate assets and the commerce fund, to the law of the place where each of these assets are located.

All the documents drawn up by notary publics are submitted to the court control.

In the case where, for the validity abroad of the notaries document, it is necessary the supra-authentication of the signature and seal of the notary public by the Minister of Justice, by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, by the diplomatic mission or by the consular office from Romania of the state where the document is to be used, the notary public will inform to the parties the obligation of carrying out these requests. The request of supra-authentication was partially suppressed by Romania’s joining by means of the Govern Decision no. 66/1999, approved by Law no. 52/2000, at the Convention of Hague, on 5th of October 1961. For the states that joined this convention the supra-authentication formality was replaced with the appending of the Apostille of the Convention from Hague

The status of the romanian notary public

The notary public:

1. is invested to carry out a service of public interest;

2. carries out documents of public authority having probative force provided by law, under the condition of affixing its seal and signature;

3. can be considered a specialist in civil, commercial and family law matters;

4. can be the person that:

• has only the Romanian citizenship, has the domicile in Romania and has the capacity to exercise the civil rights;
• has a legal degree;
• has no criminal records;
• has a good reputation;
• is able from medical point of view to exercise this position;
• carried out for two years the position of probationer notary and graduated the notary public exam or exercised for five years the position of judge, prosecutor, lawyer or another position of legal specialty and proves to have the necessary knowledge for the position of notary public.

5. has the right to a fee.

6. his capacity ceases:

• upon request;
• by means of retiring;
• as a result of dissolving the notary public office, in case of ascertain the work inability, followed by non-exerting, without justification, by the titular of this profession under the conditions of the law;
• by means of excluding from the profession for disciplinary deflections, in the case of its obvious professional inability, ascertained as a result of repeated inspections ;
• for committing a serious crime or put harm to the professional prestige, in case of final conviction.