Throughout my professional life there have been many times when my way of working has been praised, in the sense that after signing any type of deed, people are very clear about their legal position, having been fully informed of all its consequences. That people tell you that is the greatest satisfaction that can happen to a person who develops his professional life as a Notary, because they are telling you that you are doing things well.
But as the saying goes "even the best notary has a blur", and it is not that I have made any mistake in my professional performance, but that some people moved by I don't know what intentions, try to impute to you the consequences of their lack of training and professionalism, to the point that I have come to consider whether it would be necessary to put cameras in my signing room, so that there is proof of what is said and what is reported.
The authorization of a notarial document is much broader than the mere signing of it, there are conversations and warnings, which for essentially reasons of confidentiality must remain in the verbal sphere. The problem arises when someone comes to deny that what was really said was said.
I am going to go down to the field of facts, to focus all this matter. Some time ago, a series of deeds were signed that documented a separation of some partners of a company, and that was articulated through sales of social shares and some real estate of the company. They were two family groups, each of which had its own legal adviser. Before the signatures, drafts were sent to each one of the parties, they were informed of the registration situation of each one of the farms, and between the commission of the work until the day of the signing, no less than fifteen days elapsed, time which was used to finalize all the fringes of the operation, as is usual. One year after the signing of the deeds, the lawyer for one of the parties appears in my office to say that her clients could lose one of the farms that had been awarded, as a result of the execution of a charge existing and of which I had not reported.
With all the audacity in the world, he asked me to admit my fault, so that his clients could collect from my civil liability insurance. I answered her, saying that if I were responsible for any type of negligence, I would respond, but since I was not aware that I had made any mistake and that my professional performance had been correct, I was not going to admit any fault, leaving her the possibility of suing me. if you considered it appropriate.
In spite of everything, when they ask you something of this type, they always make you doubt. That's why I was gathering information: that's how I asked the lawyers for the opposing party, and they told me that at the time of signing they had some tension, when the issue of charges was raised, because they thought that the other party could get up the table and throw the whole operation overboard; I consulted my professional association and they told me that as the deed was written, it was impossible to allege any type of ignorance; I spoke with some lawyers, and they all told me the same thing, why hire an advisor who doesn't verify the purpose of the contract? and that this play was only typical of two lawyers in the entire city of Lleida, so-and-so or so-and-so, and they were indeed right.
I will end by explaining the issue a little more technically, which I usually avoid in my comments on this blog. The charges were more than five years old at the time the deed was signed. Notaries must request registration information before signing each deed, but as a guarantee that the situation of the properties at the time of agreeing on the operation has not changed at the time of signing the deed. Thus, there is a system that allows us to know, through the information that the property registry sends us, and for ten days, if there has been any entry of any cargo in the corresponding farm. In the case at hand, none of this happened, simply that a lawyer in the exercise of his professional work, was not informed of the purpose of the contract, which is very serious when that lawyer advertises himself as a specialist in real estate issues, and before the dilemma of acknowledging his own responsibility or imputing it to another, he preferred the latter.
