Notary is not to blame for the sale of social housing

The notary's office did not bend the rules in the sale of 600 homes owned by the housing association Vivare and 500 homes owned by an investor. This was stated by the Minister of Housing and Spatial Planning, Hugo de Jonge, in response to parliamentary questions. He also pointed out that De Groene Amsterdammer had to correct the article on which the parliamentary questions were based, in which a former notary was implicated.

The Royal Dutch Association of Civil-Law Notaries (KNB) and the Financial Supervision Office (BFT), which oversees the notarial profession, also fail to recognize that the rules governing the notarial profession have been relaxed in the sale of the properties. De Jonge wrote this in his answers to written questions from Sandra Beckerman (SP). "The rules that apply to the notarial profession stem from the Civil-Law Notaries Act (Wna) and the laws and regulations based on it. The BFT continues to monitor compliance with these rules. In recent years, the notarial profession has actually been subject to more extensive regulation."

Very exceptional
The De Groene Amsterdammer article suggests that sometimes a notary crosses over into the underworld. "In the experience of the BFT, the situation where a notary disregards professional regulations is very exceptional," De Jonge replies. "If this does occur, the BFT will of course take strong action." The minister also writes that the author of the article was ordered by the court to correct the content because positions are taken that are speculative and not supported by any evidence.