President of the Chamber of Notaries: “We have become much faster”

KURIER: What goals have you set for yourself as the highest professional representative of the notaries? Claus Spruzina: I want to make the importance of our profession more visible. Our 540 notaries are very close to people, know their needs and concerns, and are therefore seismographs in society. And at the same time we enjoy a high level of trust because we do not represent one side, but always try to find a balance. It’s basically in our DNA. It’s still a great feeling to have settled a family dispute.

Has it become more difficult to resolve disputes?

I would say it takes more effort because the demands have become higher. However, we manage to ensure that only very few probate cases, less than one percent per year, end in a legal dispute. This is an important contribution to the state that we are making here.

Speaking of the state. This also has to save money on the judiciary. How can notaries relieve the burden on the courts?

If politicians decide that certain things should no longer be handled by the courts for budgetary reasons, we could relieve the state at any time and take over tasks. We are, so to speak, at gunpoint.

What kind of tasks would those be? Your predecessor offered to fully handle the amicable divorce…

Yes, for example. We could also take care of the apostilles (international certification, note). The court will should also be abandoned and only the notarial will remain as a public will. We would also take on additional tasks. We are currently testing digital probate, which is intended to save the physical exchange of files with the court. This should be rolled out throughout Austria by the end of the year and thereby speed up the process.

In order to speed up probate proceedings, the notaries request an insight into the account register. When is that time?

I can’t say that exactly either. We have brought our concerns to all parties and are seeing little resistance. Inspection of accounts would relieve the burden on banks, speed up the process and thus enable heirs to access assets that may not be known to them more quickly.

The EU wants to make it easier for start-ups to grow with a uniform legal form, EU Inc., with a deposit of one euro and formation within 48 hours. A good idea?

We already have something similar in Austria, setting up a company in a one-stop shop is possible between 24 and 48 hours, that’s not an issue. But I doubt that the corporate form alone helps to increase competitiveness. The reforms in the EU to date have not fulfilled this expectation. The problem is not the corporate form, but the capital market. Start-ups lack capital. And no bank will give a loan with one euro of share capital.

The start-ups want to access cross-border financing more easily with the EU Inc. Doesn’t the new legal form help? The start-ups in Europe do not have a corporate law problem, but rather a capital market problem because access to risk capital is not uniformly regulated in the EU. Investors from the USA are staying away because the regulations are different in every country. Other areas that are important for companies, such as social, commercial or tax law, are also not harmonized.

You fear that existing standards will be undermined, why?

I am concerned that the new legal form EU Inc. will not be used so much by start-ups but by other companies to undermine our legal standards here in Austria. We have to take a close look at who founded this company and for what purpose, for example for tax evasion or money laundering. There are still a few adjustment screws that need to be turned.

Going to the notary is also perceived as a bureaucratic hurdle…

We don’t see ourselves as a bureaucratic hurdle at all. Drawing up a partnership agreement is more than just an entry in the company register – it covers many questions that the founders would otherwise not have to deal with. My experience is that many start-ups are completely inexperienced, while their international investors are often complete professionals and submit pages of contracts. It is the job of the notary to create a balance so that they are not ripped off. If the examination by a notary is no longer necessary, this will be a disadvantage for the founders. A legal dispute can endanger the existence of many people.

Aren’t old braids also being dragged along?

What is an old braid? A certification, for example, is more than just a verification of identity. It is a protection that ensures that the person is actually capable of making decisions. This is important in legal transactions. We need to check whether the person knows the content of the text he is signing. And I would like to point out that a person does the things that are assigned to us two or three times in their life. Nobody wants to do this quickly between dinner and brushing their teeth, they want to be well supported. In our country, people still dress nicely when they come to a notary’s office because it is something important.

But there are also those who just want to do everything quickly digitally…

We have already become much faster. I know times when a property transaction took six months or longer, but today it’s much quicker. Setting up a company can be done completely digitally between 24 and 48 hours. A lot has changed there. We are pioneers in digitalization in Europe, not just in corporate law, but in all notarial services.

Where are you already using artificial intelligence in the notary office?

In many areas, such as checking the plausibility of contracts, transcribing and translating foreign documents. At the beginning of the year, we made AI tools available to all notaries, which we had previously carefully checked for data security. Within two weeks, almost half of all law firms had used the tools. AI will help us work even faster and better so we have more time for people.

What role does the digital identity ID Austria play?

It is a very important component for personal identification. With the exception of the will, the entire notarial workflow can now be handled with ID Austria. In the partnership agreement, someone can be based in Australia or New York. Signing takes place digitally in a video conference; no one has to come to us in person like before or sign authenticated powers of attorney in an embassy. It would be important for ID Austria to be distributed more quickly. In order to speed this up, we notaries have offered ourselves as an issuing agency.

Where are the limits when using digital tools?

There is a difference between business, where things have to happen quickly, and private things, such as handovers or gifts that take place two or three times in a lifetime. Despite the technical revolution, we must not forget that we are and will remain human. There is a difference between sitting across from my mother giving a gift and swiping an ID card like at an ATM. No, everything doesn’t have to be as easy as ordering from Amazon.