Cases of revocation of establishment permission decisions of a notary office in Vietnam

Cases of revocation of establishment permission decisions of a notary office in Vietnam (Internet image)

Regarding this issue, LawNet would like to answer as follows:

1. General overview of notary offices in Vietnam

Specifically, Article 22 of the Law on Notarization 2014 provides general provisions on notary offices as follows:

- Notary offices shall be organized and operate in accordance with the Law on Notarization 2014 and other relevant legal documents concerning partnerships.

A notary office must have at least 2 notaries being its partners. Notary offices have no capital contributors.

- The at-law representative of a notary office shall act as its head. The head of a notary office must be a notary who is its partner and has practiced notarization for at least 2 years.

- The name of a notary office must contain the words “notary office” followed by the full name of its head or another notary being its partner as agreed by all notaries who are partners, and must not be identical to or cause confusion with those of other notarial practice organizations and violate national historical and cultural traditions, ethics and fine customs.

- Notary offices must have head offices satisfying the conditions prescribed by the Government.

Notary offices may have their own seals and accounts and shall operate on the principle of financial autonomy with their revenues coming from notarization charges, notarization remuneration and other lawful sources.

- Notary offices shall use seals bearing no national emblem. Notary offices may have their seals carved and use them after obtaining establishment permission decisions.

Procedures and dossiers of request for permission for seal carving and management and use of seals of notary offices must comply with the law on seals.

2. Cases of revocation of establishment permission decisions of a notary office in Vietnam

According to Clause 1, Article 30 of the Law on Notarization 2014, a notary office may have its establishment permission decision revoked in the following cases:

- The notary office fails to register its operation as prescribed in Article 23 of the Law on Notarization 2014;

- Past the 6-month period from the date of receiving the written operation registration, the notary office still fails to commence its operation;

- The notary office fails to operate continuously for 3 months or more, except cases in which all notaries being its partners are suspended from notarial practice;

- The notary office has only one notary being its partner and no new partner added within 6 months from the date when the number of notaries being its partners becomes insufficient;

- All notaries being partners of the notary office are relieved from duty, die or are declared by a court to be dead;

- The notary office no longer satisfies the operation conditions prescribed in this Law and other relevant legal documents.

3. Obligations of the notary office in Vietnam

According to the Law on Notarization 2014, notary offices in Vietnam shall be organized and operate in accordance with the Law on Notarization 2014 and other relevant legal documents concerning partnerships.

Therefore, the notary office will be responsible for performing the obligations under Article 33 of the Law on Notarization 2014, specifically as follows:

-  To manage notaries practicing at their organizations in observing law and rules on notarial practice ethics;

- To comply with the laws on labor, tax, finance and statistics.

- To apply the working hours applicable to state administrative agencies.

- To post up working timetables, notarization procedures, rules on receipt of notarization requesters, and rates of notarization charges and notarization remuneration and other expenses at their head offices.

- To purchase professional liability insurance for their notaries in accordance with Article 37 of this Law and pay compensation for damage in accordance with Article 38 of this Law.

- To receive, create favorable conditions for and manage notarial practice probationers during their probationary period at their organizations.

- To create conditions for their notaries to participate in annual professional re-training.

- To comply with competent state agencies’ requests concerning reporting, examination, inspection and provision of information on notarized contracts, transactions and translations.

- To keep notarization registers and preserve notarization dossiers.

- To share information on the origin of assets and actual state of asset transactions and other information on deterrent measures applied to assets related to contracts and transactions notarized by their notaries to be included in the notarization database prescribed in Article 62 of this Law.

- To perform other obligations as prescribed by this Law and other relevant legal documents.

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