The notary as an anchor

What a “notaris” is

If you moved here from the United Kingdom, the United States, Ireland or most Commonwealth countries, the word is misleading. A notaris is not the same thing as a notary public. A notary public mainly witnesses signatures. A Dutch notaris is a legally trained office holder who draws up official deeds and is required to remain independent of the parties involved.

If you come from Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Belgium or most of Latin America, the role will be familiar — it is the same civil-law tradition, under a different name.

This matters here for one practical reason: in the Netherlands a number of arrangements around inheritance and authority run through this office. That is why Familiekluis gives it a place, rather than deciding everything by itself.

What the notary does

A notary can formally record your wishes — in a will or a levenstestament, for example — and confirm that a scenario has in fact taken effect, such as a death. That independent confirmation prevents any one person or any one company from deciding on release by themselves.

What Familiekluis does not do

Familiekluis does not execute deeds and receives no commission from notaries. The notary is not an intermediary for the software; the roles stay separate. You choose your own notary, and Familiekluis provides the place where documents and arrangements sit in order and securely.

How the connection works

In your vault you record what should happen in a scenario — a hospital admission, a death — and who gets access at that point. A notary can be designated as the independent confirmer: only after that confirmation is released what you have prepared, according to your settings.

If you are not Dutch, ask this first

One question decides a great deal and we deliberately do not answer it here, because the answer depends on your nationality, where you live and what you have already arranged elsewhere: which country’s inheritance law applies to your estate?

Living in the Netherlands does not automatically mean everything is settled under Dutch law, and having a will drawn up in your home country does not automatically mean it works here. Put that question to a notary before you assume either. Bring what you already have — a foreign will, a marriage contract, a prenuptial agreement — because those documents are exactly what the answer turns on.

Familiekluis is where you keep those documents and record where the originals are. It does not answer the legal question, and no software should pretend to.

For notary practices

Do you work in the notarial profession and want to know how Familiekluis supports the release process for your clients? Get in touch at support@familiekluis.nl. We are glad to show how the confirmation step works and what is asked of the practice — deliberately very little.

Clear explanations of the subjects a notary is involved in are on our Dutch pages: testament, levenstestament and verklaring van erfrecht.