Ministers: Notary may conduct transaction for colleague or acquaintance

"The civil-law notary is expected to act carefully, impartially, and independently in all cases. This certainly also applies to transactions conducted by a fellow civil-law notary or an acquaintance. We do not necessarily consider this practice undesirable as long as the civil-law notary acts carefully, impartially, and independently," said Ministers Sander Dekker of Legal Protection and Ferd Grapperhaus of Justice and Security in response to parliamentary questions from the Socialist Party (SP).

In their responses (pdf, 216 kB), they also indicate that they will await the outcome of the ongoing investigations into the fraud at Pels Rijcken. "After that, we can assess, in that light, whether the entire set of legal safeguards and supervisory mechanisms is still sufficient to prevent fraud as much as possible," the ministers said. Regarding the role of the Financial Supervision Office, they stated: "Given the recently implemented reinforcements, we assume that the BFT currently has sufficient capacity for its tasks."

Accelerated renewal
The SP members posed the questions in response to an article by Marcel Pheijffer (Nyenrode) and Jeroen Princen (DVDW Advocaten) in the Nederlands Juristenblad and De Accountant about the fraud at Pels Rijcken. A former civil-law notary committed fraud. The Royal Dutch Association of Civil-Law Notaries (KNB), partly in response to the recent fraud case at Pels Rijcken, will accelerate reforms within the notarial profession. The focus will be on the registration of secondary positions, the management of foundations, and the auditing of escrow accounts.