How much does a Notary cost?

It is true that Notaries are civil servants, but it is equally true that we are also legal professionals and, in many cases, operate as self-employed. This dual civil servant-self-employed nature is reflected in Article 1 of the Notarial Regulation «notaries are both public officials and legal professionals, and the organisation of the Notariat corresponds to this dual character».

Unlike other “pure” civil servants, Notaries have to set up their offices, hire staff and maintain that entire structure, without receiving a salary, wage, or any other public assistance. But despite this, we remain civil servants, which is why there is a regulation that governs how much Notaries must charge for deeds, established in a Royal Decree of 1989, which has not been amended since then, except to reduce the cost of notarial services.

The most important thing about this is that the body of Notaries is not funded through the General State Budgets, nor does it cost the taxpayer anything; it is sustained by the good work of each Notary and by those who use their services.

This is a question, and generally an exclamation, that is often heard behind the back of a Notary. It is true that Notaries are well remunerated, not so much as civil servants, but for the work and professionalism of each one of us since, as we have mentioned, we act as self-employed professionals.

However, when we ask ourselves how much a Notary earns, we must break two myths:

1. The amount on the notary invoice is not the Notary's salary. The invoice amount includes, in addition to VAT and the fixed AJD, the maintenance costs of the office, the employees' salaries, telematic sending expenses of the deeds to different bodies, and the expenses of the Notaries' Association. We must repeat that the Notariat is financed by the work it performs, and not at the expense of taxpayers.
2. No, we do not charge just for signing. I wish it were so, but no, behind a deed there is a lot of prior and subsequent work. There is advice, problem-solving, sending to registries, obtaining documents, sending to public bodies and, most importantly, the responsibility that Notaries assume for the work we carry out.

As we have mentioned, the amount of the price of the deeds is regulated by law in the notarial tariff, which was established by Royal Decree 1426/89 of 17 November. This affects all deeds and their price, affecting, for example, wills, sales, mortgage loans, powers of attorney, minutes, inheritances, new constructions, declarations of heirs, domestic partnerships, marriages, divorces, minutes of nationality oath and all kinds of notarial documents.

The first thing to bear in mind is that often the amount may vary depending on the number of pages of the document, as this is one of the criteria that increases the price. A special power of attorney with five pages is not the same as a general one, with many clauses, which costs twice as much. And secondly, there are documents without a monetary value, that is, they are more fixed (wills or powers of attorney), and others with a monetary value, which vary depending on the amount stated in the deed (sales, inheritances, donations, etc.).

Documents without a monetary value are more predictable in terms of their cost, as they are regulated in a fixed way so that they can be accessible to the whole population. People often ask how much does a will cost?, around €40 or €45, how much does a power of attorney cost? between €50 or €65, but it will depend a lot on the number of pages or copies. Once, a client requested five copies of her will, she wanted to distribute it among her friends, so the bill went up considerably, but she paid it happily (she must have had many good friends, no doubt).

Regarding documents with a monetary value, a variable cost is applied depending on the value of the assets, that is, it will depend a lot if, for example, a property worth €100,000 or €800,000 is acquired. Also, these deeds usually involve more management expenses, as the obtaining of documents from the notary is usually requested (IBI, energy efficiency certificate or certificate) or documentation must be requested and copies sent by law to other bodies (Registers, town halls, cadastre).

There are discounts and reductions in the deeds. Discounts, with a maximum of 10%, are applied voluntarily by each Notary, when they consider it appropriate. As for tariff reductions, these also exist, for example, for the sale and mortgage of a main residence, or the deeds of sale and mortgage loans for Officially Protected Housing (VPO) have social tariff reductions. These reductions are applied automatically by the billing programmes of the notary offices.