When selling a flat: Who pays the notary?

Max Müller is selling a condominium and has finally found a potential buyer. Now it is a question of having the purchase contract drawn up by a notary or lawyer. Who pays for the notary when selling a flat?

Are you in the same situation as Max? Then you should read this article, because here you will find out who is responsible for paying the notary or lawyer.

Buyer usually bears the notary's or lawyer's fees

There is no legal regulation on who pays for the notary or lawyer when selling a flat. This is a matter of agreement between the buyer and the seller.

As a rule, the buyer pays the notary or lawyer. The reason for this is that the buyer usually commissions the legal expert he trusts to draw up the purchase contract.

Exception: If you want to get rid of a property that is difficult to sell, you can accommodate the buyer and pay the costs of drawing up the contract. Honestly, however, this case rarely happens in practice.

Note in the purchase offer protects you from paying the notary costs

Assume you have agreed in advance with the buyer that he will pay the notary's or lawyer's fees for the contract. However, the buyer backs out and demands that you bear all or part of the costs.

For precisely these cases, you need a well-executed, legally binding, written purchase offer! This is because even before the purchase contract is drawn up, it states, among other things, who will bear the notary's costs.

Once the buyer has signed the purchase offer, it is legally effective and you are covered.

If there is no mention in the purchase offer of who will pay the legal fees, this could be your undoing and cause a protracted legal battle.

In the worst case, you may even have to pay the costs of drawing up the purchase contract...

What costs should you expect for the notary or lawyer?

Whether you freely or compulsorily bear the costs of drawing up the purchase contract: Exactly how high the costs are depends on the notary.

Lawyers and notaries usually charge 1.2 to 2.5 per cent of the sales price plus 20 per cent VAT plus the money for cash expenses. These are incurred, for example, for the legal specialist when he obtains the land register application or carries out the notarisation.

However, there are also notaries who charge flat-rate fees. So if you find yourself in the position of having to pay the notary's or lawyer's fees when selling a house, you should look for such a flat-rate offer.

Tip from the real estate agent: Reduce notary fees with complete documents

I mentioned above that the notary charges cash expenses. Among other things, these are for obtaining the extract from the land register. If you obtain this in advance yourself or have it obtained by an estate agent, you can already reduce the notary's fees.

Since the land register documents consist of several sheets - namely the A, B and C sheet - you should check their completeness once again before submitting the documents.

Important: If the documents relevant to the sale are not submitted on time or are incomplete, this can even lead to the sale falling through. You can read more about this in this article: "At the notary/lawyer: Without these documents, the house salefalls through".

Conclusion: A purchase offer prepared by a professional protects you from having to pay the notary's fees.

As I said, in most cases the notary fees are paid by the buyer. In order to protect yourself legally in case the buyer tries to rip you off, you should have a purchase offer drawn up by a professional.

This includes the most important points of the purchase contract as well as the regulations on the assumption of costs for the preparation of the purchase contract. This protects you from suddenly having to pay the notary's bill.

Do you have more questions about who pays the notary when selling a flat? Or would you like to have a legally binding purchase offer drawn up by an expert?

Then feel free to contact us. You can reach us by e-mail(immobilien@arealita.at), by phone(+ 43 512 580 242) or via our contact form (click here!).

With kind regards

Yours, Bernhard Großruck

© peopleimages.com - stock.adobe.com