by shak » Fri Sep 29, 2006 3:19 pm
Before I proceed Uk should be read as Morocco. I am not a big fan of the notaries as my cynical side tells me that as the system of revenue collection has been weak a Notary is being paid handsomely for his services ( to keep them sweat ) i.e to collect the stamp duty transfer fee etc. A notary is a govt reprensntative whose job is mainly to see two thigs
1) The parties to the contract are those who claim who they are.
2) The contract is legal.
he/She has no other obligation as regards to contract and its clauses.
( The question of conflict of interest therfore does not come into play)
On point no 2 above lets face it all contracts will be legal until you ask them to notorise a drugs deal. SO what is their function ????? and why I are we paying 1%, besides the work is the same if you buy a €1 or €1million property. The notory system is used all over Europe.
Most lawyers work closely with the Notory and you should see them sucking up to the notory, I have seen this in Spain, Italy etc.
Everybody stands when the notory comes in does not sit down until told by the notory and we pay for this high and mighty behaviour.
However a good competant lawyer will look at clauses which are toobaised in favour of the builders e.g quality, timing, land searhes, delay in completion etc.
Finally, he will pehaps go deep into the land ownership as we know that morocco has been in the hands of Portugese, Spanish and French, needless to say that their respective departure had not been orderly and as a result the land ownership documents are suspect.
For this reason we need a local layer and not somebody sitting in Canada who is french speaking and had studied French law.