Cost of notarial deed and of other professional services

The cost of a notarial deed

Notaries provide the community with a complex service, they carry out a public function of the State within the framework of an independent profession.

The notarial deed not only regulates transactions between parties, but it provides added value in at least three respects:
- a contract signed before a notary is unchallengable and hence it avoids expensive and time-consuming litigation procedures;
- it is enforceable and hence it can be used to recover credits and it constitutes privileged evidence in a trial;
- the general certainty of rights ensured by the reliability of public registers provides conditions of social stability in a framework of legality which is indispensable for business transactions.

What about the fees charged by notaries?

How much of the bill we pay is actually the notary’s fee?

The costs of a notarial deed comprise: duties and taxes that the Notary collects on behalf of the State;  expenses incurred with the public administration offices for preparing the deed and subsequent obligations to be fulfilled after the signing of the deed; and the Notary’s fee for his services.

For instance, in transferring the ownership of a second-hand car, the Notary’s fee is on average, some 20-25 euros.  Most of the cost incurred by the purchaser (up to 400-500 euros)  are other charges, most of which are taxes.

The Notary’s fee is regulated by a national rate that is set by law.

Users may address their queries about a notary’s fee to the Consiglio notarile distrettuale, the Notaries’ District Office.

The amount paid includes the expenses incurred by the Notary to ensure the efficient management of his office.  The Telematics forwarding of deeds to the Public Registrar’s Office is indeed possible thanks to an I.T. infrastructure that has been set up and paid by the Association of Italian Notaries. It connects the notaries to the Public Administration network.

 

Purchasing a house: how much do the Notary’s services cost?

The tables below give a rough indication of the fees charged by notaries for real estate transfers and mortgages.

The figures are the total amount which includes the duties and fees envisaged for the various items that make up the existing rates approved by a Ministerial Decree.

In working out the amount of some of the items (having a pre-fixed unit cost) reference has been made to current practice.

Hence for the conveyance of a piece of property, the following assumptions were made:
a)   conveyance of one or several buildings located in the same Municipality and belonging to the same owner;
b) the standard amount of time and resources required to check the mortgage and cadastral/land registry history of the items of property, and a single recording and registration of the transfer deed;
c) the issuing of four copies of the deed, each of which comprises eight pages;
d) checking the most recurring legal, tax and town-planning requirements;
e) receiving a copy of the deed at the Notary’s office without travelling costs.

The Notary’s fee may vary from case to case, but it will always range within a minimum and a maximum envisaged by the existing Ministerial rates, taking into account the general criteria set forth by the Notaries’District Council.

The tables that are published do not indicate the minimum and maximum amounts in absolute terms but the proportion that goes to the notary in the case at hand.

All the information about the complexity of the service and hence of its expected cost will be provided by the Notary.

Conveyance of real estate

PRICE OF THE BUILDING		MINIMUM FEE	MAXIMUM FEE
Value up to	93,000.00	1,681.30	2,428.80
Value up to	139,500.00	1,805.50	2,617.40
Value up to	186,000.00	1,933.15	2,830.15
Value up to	232,400.00	2,029.75	2,991.15
Value up to	280,000.00	2,157.40	3,203.90
Value up to	370,000.00	2,254.00	3,364.90
Value up to	465,000.00	2,478.25	3,738.65

All the values in the table are expressed in Euros.

Other cost items to be added are: registration taxes, the duties levied by the Registrar’s Office, stamps and taxes due to the Public Administration bodies (in particular, the notarial archives and the Inland Revenue office) plus V.A.T. (20% of the fee).

For example, in the case of the conveyance of a flat which is the first piece of property that the purchaser has ever bought at a price of 150,000.00 euros, including the taxes on this amount, the monies due, in total, are:

 

 

B) fees	from 1.749,20	to  2,303.50
C) VAT 20%	from  349,84	to    460.70
D) Grand Total	from 2.228,14	to  2,953.30

Additional costs to be added to item A) are the costs for certifications required by the lending institution, and to item B) are the costs incurred for the cadastral title searches, if not charged entirely to item A), plus VAT, and the expenses and fees for additional fulfilments not envisaged in this example.

Table of tax rates

Please notice that if the calculated tax obtained by applying the relevant rate is lower that the fixed tax, the purchaser will however have to pay the fixed tax.

Purchase of dwelling houses

A) Purchase from construction firms

Purchasing a dwelling house from a construction firm is subject to VAT, which is paid directly to the seller.

The VAT levied on the price of the property is 4% if the buyer claims this is his/her first dwelling house, and 10% if  the buyer already owns a building/house.

The same taxes apply when dwelling houses are assigned to the members of a building cooperative.

If the property being purchased is subject to VAT, the following taxes will have to be paid to the notary public who will then pay them to the competent authorities:

 

Registration tax	Fixed
Mortgage tax	Fixed
Land registry tax	Fixed

The fixed tax to date is, 168,00 euros.

B) Purchase from a private individual

It is recalled that the registration, mortgage and land registry taxes are to be paid by the purchaser to the notary public who in turn will pay the sums to the competent authorities when he registers the deed.

1) If the purchaser is not entitled to the tax discount

Registration tax	7%
Mortgage tax	2%
Land registry tax	1%

 

As a rule, the rates are applied to the purchase price indicated in the conveyance deed; in the case of conveyance between individuals of a building to be used as a home, the purchaser may ask that the registration, mortgage and cadastral/land registry tax  be paid on the “cadastral value” of the property (namely the value obtained by multiplying the cadastral income times the official coefficients:  115.5 if the property is the first dwelling house being bought and 126 in all other cases), irrespective of the actual purchase price.

2) Special terms when purchasing one’s first dwelling house

Registration tax	3%
Mortgage tax	Fixed
Land registry tax	Fixed

The rates are applied to the taxable amount determined as indicated above.

The fixed tax to date is, 168,00 euros.

Purchase of land

A) Conveyance of farm land (without tax discounts)

Registration tax	15%
Mortgage tax	2%
Land registry tax	1%

B) Conveyance of land other than farm land (without tax discounts)

Registration tax	8%
Mortgage tax	2%
Land registry tax	1%

Loans

Medium and long-term loan facilities, that last more than eighteen months, issued by lending institutions (e.g. banks), are subject to a substitute tax of 0.25% on the loan issued if the mortgage is taken out to purchase a first dwelling house, otherwise the tax is 2%.

The substitute tax is collected by the lender who then pays it to the State. It replaces the registration, stamp duty, mortgage and land registry tax.  

Activities

The activities carried out by the notary do not end with the signing of the deed by the parties but include also duties, tasks and obligations that are carried out both before and after the conclusion of the agreement.

For instance, in summary, for a property purchase deed, the activity of the notary includes:

-  interviews with the parties to explain and clarify the aspects involved in purchasing a property, the town-planning implications, examining the position of the parties and illustrating the possible operative solutions suited to the aims the parties wish to achieve;

-  drafting of the notarial deed introducing all the clasues and phrases that the law envisages for the case at hand;

-   mortgage and land registry checks, that the notary must make in order to identify the property and check its ownership title and make sure that it is free from encumbrances and free from any other charges that the purchaser might have to incur after the purchase;

-  searches in other public registers, where this is envisaged;

- checking that the parties can exercise their rights;

-  identifying and decidine what actions need to be taken to protect the parties if there are mortgages or other potentially harmful formalities;

- checking that the agreement is lawful and, where necessary, identify solutions that are consistent with the law, as alternatives to the request made by the parties;

- specify what taxes apply and any the other amount due;

- in relation to the financial status of the family examine how it may be influenced by the purchase;

- registration obligations and communication of the data to the competent public offices;

- carrying out the registration formalities;

-  analysing the “private international law” aspects, where foreign laws were to apply for cases in which one of the parties were to be a foreign citizen or lives abroad or where the case at hand involves international law in any way;

- issue copies and carry out the formalities for the conservation of the document.