Digitalisation of the Citizen's Notarial Portal
Currently, we live in a time of profound technological advances, with the development of teleworking, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence. These changes are modifying ways of working, making life easier for people and companies while creating a new technological ecosystem in the public and private sectors.
JLA NOTARIOS are a notary office in Spain, physically located in Barcelona, and we are very interested in using technology to provide the best possible legal service. Therefore, in this post, we will talk about the digitalisation of the Citizen's Notarial Portal or the Electronic Notarial Headquarters.
What is the Citizen's Notarial Portal?
The Citizen's Notarial Portal or the Electronic Notarial Headquarters is a technological tool currently little used but which seems destined to be key in the new way of organising the relationships between notaries, citizens and companies.
The recent legislative changes give the Citizen's Notarial Portal an essential role in the new way of working in notaries' offices, as it will be the centre through which notarial operations, especially commercial ones, can be fully managed, even allowing the authorisation of notarial deeds by videoconference.
If you need to know what type of commercial operations can be managed, you can read this post:
What was the Notarial Portal being used for until now?
The governing body of the Notariat, the General Council of the Notariat (CGN), defines the Notarial Citizen Portal on its official website as follows:
“The Notarial Citizen Portal is the tool through which citizens and businesses access the notarial electronic headquarters to benefit from various notarial procedures and services, with the same security and guarantees as if they were going to the notaries, but with the agility and ease typical of digital operations. The Portal allows any user to locate and contact a notary online. Through the portal, the citizen can also find out about the notarial documents they have made over the last 17 years, and who holds them; in this way, they will have the possibility to request a simple electronic copy of them and store them in a private and secure space. To these procedures, which can be done remotely, is added the possibility of designating the notary that the user wants to formalise their mortgage loan, start preparing a will with them, or ask them to carry out the necessary procedures on their behalf to set up a company. Likewise, it is possible to hold a videoconference with a notary whenever they consider it appropriate.”
In summary, until now, on the Notarial Citizen Portal it was possible to assign Notaries to formalise mortgages and request notarial copies. It also allowed advice via
videoconference, but it has been very little used because other applications such as Meet or Teams are available that allow these tasks to be carried out, without electronic signature and more quickly.
Therefore, until now this Notarial Citizen Portal was hardly used in practice.
Changes in the Citizen's Notarial Portal
What legislative changes have there been in the Citizen's Notarial Portal?
The situation explained so far has undergone a radical transformation with the important Law 11/2023, of 8 May, on the digitalisation of notarial and registry actions, which transposes Directive (EU) 2019/1151 of the European Parliament and of the Council.
This law introduces article 17 ter of the Notarial Law, which comes into force on 8 November 2023 and allows the granting and authorisation via videoconference in the following acts or legal transactions:
- Commercial policies. In this case, the sending of the policy by the credit institution to the notarial electronic headquarters will imply its consent to the documented transaction, unless otherwise provided in the text of the policy.
- The incorporation of companies, appointments and commercial powers of attorney of all kinds provided for in commercial legislation, as well as the granting of any other corporate act, provided that if they contain contributions from partners to the share capital, these are monetary.
- Powers of procedural representation, for acting before public administrations, as well as electoral powers, and powers for specific acts. Authorisation by videoconference of general or preventive powers will not be possible.
- Revocation of powers, except general preventive ones.
- Letters of payment and cancellations of guarantees.
- Minutes of general meetings and reference minutes in the strict sense.
- Testimonies of signature legitimisation.
- Wills in a declared epidemic situation while the confinement obligation lasts.
- Declarations of new construction without termination of co-ownership, nor adjudication of property, and the division of horizontal property.
- Conciliation, unless the notary considers physical presence advisable for the proper completion of the file.
- Those acts and legal transactions for which, according to their nature, are established by regulation.
Therefore, the reform is fundamental, because it allows people to sign these documents by videoconference, without the need to physically attend the notary's office.
If you want more information about this reform you can visit this post:
Digitalisation in Notaries
At JLA Notarios we believe that it is a necessary reform that makes life easier for people, combining the legal certainty of the notarial system with the agility and convenience allowed by the current environment.
The centre of this new operation of notaries lies in the digitalisation of the Citizen's Notarial Portal or Electronic Notarial Headquarters. From this platform, all procedures to authorise these documents electronically will be managed.
If you are interested in watching a YouTube video about the content of the Citizen's Notarial Portal or the Electronic Notarial Headquarters, we recommend the following:
From 8 November 2023, it will be possible to electronically sign all types of notarial documents of a commercial nature and powers of attorney that are not general through the Citizen Notarial Portal or the Notarial Electronic Headquarters, in addition to the aforementioned documents.
As the entire team of professionals at JLA Notarios are passionate about technology, we will be very attentive to the developments related to the Citizen Notarial Portal or the Notarial Electronic Headquarters.
In future posts, we will keep you informed about the legal development and implementation of these new technological systems that will serve to improve the lives
of citizens.
Please contact us if you need the assistance of a Notary in Barcelona or anywhere else. You can do so by calling 93 159 17 62, filling in the contact form on our website or by writing us an email at bcn@jlanotarios.com.
Even if you are not from Barcelona, some procedures can be carried out remotely; visit our page about Digital Notary for more information.
