Negative interest

Banks pay interest on their funds that are deposited with the European Central Bank. In turn, banks charge this negative interest to their customers.

Civil-law notary offices keep large amounts of money in their client accounts on behalf of private individuals, companies and institutions, for they keep funds involved in the transfer of property, inheritances, purchase prices, mortgages and other deposit monies. As a neutral party, the civil-law notary is not allowed to profit or suffer a loss from the interest on client accounts. Therefore, we pass this negative interest on to our clients.

Because it is impossible to calculate the exact interest in each file (amounts vary widely, as do the number of days the money is in our client account)), we choose to charge fixed rates:

Transfer of residential or commercial property or land and mortgages

We base our calculations on the assumption that the monies that we keep for you are in our client account for an average of 5 days. We charge € 7 (€ 8.47 incl. VAT) per € 100,000 (in round figures) of the purchase price or mortgage amount.

If the execution (signing) of the instrument must be postponed through the actions of one of the parties, or if an amount must be kept by us as a security deposit, we will charge extra interest for the period the money is in our client account.

Security deposits

At property transactions, the contract of purchase and sale often provides that the buyer must pay 10% of the purchase price into the civil-law notary’s client account as a security deposit. Alternatively, one can have a recognized financial institution provide a bank guarantee equivalent to the deposit. If the buyer chooses to pay the deposit to us from his own resources, we will charge interest for the period the money is in our client account.

Other sums paid into our client account

For amounts received in our client account more than three days prior to the date of signing the instrument or instruments, we charge negative interest on the excess days, as well as an administrative fee of € 20 (€ 24.20 incl. VAT).

When interest rates change, we will adjust the above amounts or interest rates accordingly.