Notary informs clients about legal capacity assessment

The capacity assessment. It's not always clear to everyone why a notary performs this assessment. After all, they're not doctors, are they? To explain the capacity assessment process performed by notaries, the Royal Dutch Association of Civil-Law Notaries (KNB) has created two consumer brochures: one for making a will and one for making a living will.

A notary's assessment of testamentary capacity is necessary because a (living) will of someone who lacks capacity is not valid. The notary will therefore always ask the client what they want to stipulate in a (living) will and why. It's important that the client can explain this in their own words. If it quickly becomes clear that there's no reason to doubt the client's testamentary capacity, the client will likely not notice the assessment. Sometimes, however, there are reasons to pay more attention to the assessment. More information on this can be found in the brochures about the notary's assessment of testamentary capacity (pdf, 50 kB) and living will (pdf, 50 kB) . This is also explained in a video (2:39 min).