The Justice Minister Koen Geens is planning 2 projects to digitalize the notary system, he announced on Friday. Friday just happened to be the 125th anniversary of the Royal Belgian Notary Federation. One of the projects will allow people to sign notary contracts via videoconference, in two sessions.
Currently, people have to be in the same place to sign a contract, for example for the sale of a house, even if they live far away from each other and have different notaries. The videoconference will save time, the Minister said.
Mr Geens (CD&V) also wants a digital inheritance register, which will make it easier for the notary in charge to do their research. A bailiff will also know who to talk about unpaid rent, a bank will know who to talk to about a still active bank account in the name of a deceased person, etc. There are no less than 500,000 inheritance transactions every year.
It will no longer be necessary to go through the Court of First instance to refuse, accept an inheritance. This will now be done through a notary. This means those concerned will not have to go through a court, so the courts will have a lighter workload, Mr Geens said.
(Source: Belga)
