Escribana Ines Páez - Important Information

Legal education

Notaries in Uruguay receive a full legal education (minimum 6-year-University degree) and before being admitted to the profession they are sworn in by the Supreme Court of Justice (as different from most jurisdictions of the world where notaries are not subject to any prerequisite other than being persons of good reputation with basic education, not a professional but a commissioned clerk)

Legal counselling or advice

Legal counselling is an essential part of Notaries’ professional work (while notaries public in most jurisdictions are neither permitted nor competent to give legal advice).

Legal professional (not a short-term appointment)

A Uruguayan Notary Public is a legal professional and may only be suspended by the Supreme Court of Justice (while a notary public's commission in other jurisdictions expires with time)

Certification authority

Uruguayan Notaries Public are not obliged to testify before a court of justice with respect to notarial instruments unless their authenticity is challenged, however, their notarial deeds are proof in themselves (evidence admitted in court). (In other jurisdictions a notary public has the power to certify, but his certification has limited probative effect.)

Differences based on the cultural distinction between civil law and common law

The essence of such distinction is based on the essential cultural philosophical approaches of the civil law and common law systems.

Until recently, the common law was a non-codified set of rules of law issued from the corpus of court decisions. In English tradition, judges pronounce the law and the judiciary adapts the law to cope with evolving society. In such a system, courts are the pre-eminent agents of law-making and the courtroom is where cases of law must be dealt with; thus the greatest value is given to court testimony.

Another element of this system, an almost complete absence of formalism in contracting, finds its source in the high moralistic values of society where one's word and a handshake were to be honoured in virtually all instances. Take, for example, the following typically Anglo-Saxon expressions: fair play, gentlemen's agreement, etc.

The civil law approach belongs to societies with more secular philosophical values and is predisposed toward the value of writing. Testimonial evidence is "seen as temporary and susceptible to many subjective factors that might affect its value, while documentary evidence is perceived as more objective and more reliable because it is contemporaneous with the act or accord amongst the parties and because it is prepared prior to the inception of litigation," not to mention the weaknesses of human beings, memory being an example.

In the civil law system, the written word is paramount in court proceedings, the notarial document being singled out for its particular probative value.

Additional information

Notaries in Uruguay keep record of all of the documents that they authenticate or notarize, referring to instruments that the parties execute without the intervention of a government official of any type, such as agreements and powers of attorney. They also attest to a multitude of acts and circumstances, and, in the business realm, the service of notaries is even more substantial, since they witness the creation of business entities and the transfer of different types of assets (real estate, commercial paper, stock), assist in liquidations, authenticate a multiplicity of legal documents (purchase agreements, leases, deeds, and any type of contracts in general) and corporate instruments (shareholder agreements, bylaws, corporate resolutions, powers of attorney). In addition, notaries review the legality of titles to land for the previous 30 years, provide information on liens, provide advice on all sorts of real property, including condominiums and their common property system, and may act as tax collectors in real estate transactions as prescribed by law.

Sometimes this distinction is made by calling ones Notaries Public and the others Civil-Law Notaries. However, this is falls short for differentiation purposes.