Take a closer look, please: notaries warn about the risks of digital housing transactions

Remote and remote — remember the difference

First, you need to clearly understand that there are remote real estate transactions, and there are remote notarial actions. These are completely different formats!

Remote notarial action takes place online, that is, without a personal visit to the notary’s office. An application for its completion can be submitted online in your personal account on the portal of the Federal Notary Chamber.

But remote certification requires the mandatory personal participation of two or more notaries. In other words, you won’t be able to do without a visit to a notary’s office, it will simply be an office convenient for each of the parties to the transaction.

The list of notarial actions available to be performed remotely includes only 13 items. In particular, online a notary can accept non-cash funds for deposit for settlements on a transaction, as well as certify the availability of information in the Unified State Register of Real Estate.

Other notarial actions, including certification of real estate transactions, cannot be performed remotely. The reason is simple — such actions require verification of the compliance of the will and expression of the applicant, clarification of the legal consequences and a number of other actions that can only be performed during a personal visit to the notary. Otherwise, there is a high risk of violating the rights of transaction participants or third parties.

How is a remote transaction carried out?

Remote work is rapidly gaining popularity: in 2023, the number of such notary transactions became 2.2 times more than a year earlier, and the same growth dynamics continue in 2024. This is understandable, because the participants are spared the need to travel hundreds or thousands of kilometers to meet each other, they save on tickets and accommodation, and do not face the problem of taking time off or vacation from work.

All participants in the transaction are located in Russia

To certify a remote transaction, the parties to which are located in Russia, all participants at the same agreed time need to come to any convenient notary in their city.

You can choose a notary online: on the “State Services”, on the portal of the Federal Notary Chamber or in the mobile application “Notariat.RF”.

Then notaries check the documents, request, if necessary, additional information, make requests to state registers, draw up and agree on a single draft agreement. After this, a convenient time for all participants to visit the notary’s office is selected, which is different for each of the parties.

At the appointed hour, the notaries will establish a video connection with each other via secure channels and begin the key stage of certifying the transaction. They will find out the real will of the parties and its compliance with the expression of will, the awareness and voluntariness of the decision, read the text of the agreement to the participants, and explain its legal consequences.

After this, each of the parties to the transaction signs on a special tablet of the notary, and then the agreement is certified by enhanced qualified electronic signatures of all participating notaries.

The final point of a remote transaction is the sending of an electronic package of documents to Rosreestr by the notary working with the buyer. According to the law, ownership rights under notarized transactions are registered in the Unified State Register of Real Estate within one business day.

One of the parties to the transaction lives abroad

Let us note once again that at present, remote notarization of real estate transactions is only possible if all participants are located in Russia. If one of the parties is outside the country and for some reason cannot or does not want to come to Russia, the purchase and sale transaction can be completed using a notarized power of attorney.

Abroad, the functions of a notary can be partially performed by consular officers, including the ability to certify a power of attorney for the disposal of real estate in the Russian Federation.

To certify the equivalence of an electronic and paper document, for example a power of attorney, abroad, you will need to contact the Russian consulate. There, this document will be scanned, signed with an electronic digital signature and handed over to the applicant. He will then be able to send the electronic document to Russia. There, if necessary, it can again be converted into paper format by a notary. And it will not be a copy, but a document equivalent to the original.

What are the risks?

If we talk about contracts concluded in simple written form, their translation into digital format only increases all possible risks and dangers, especially for a person unprepared in legal terms.

Participants in a transaction may not understand its legal consequences or may be deliberately misled regarding its actual terms and legal meaning. At the same time, the online format does not make it possible to ensure that the seller and buyer of real estate enter into the transaction voluntarily, understand its terms and agree with them, and that at the time of signing the contract they are completely adequate.

During remote certification, notaries, just as in the usual mode, establish the identities of applicants, check their competence, conduct a legal examination of the transaction, explain its legal consequences and establish the compliance of the will and will of the parties. In other words, they make sure that the parties to the transaction understand what they are signing and agree to the terms of the contract.

source: RIA Novosti Real Estate