A suggestion to cheapen the more „expensive“ notary actions will increase the price of „inexpensive“ actions several times

Vilnius, the 5th of March. Having interconnecting Notary service pricing with expenditure of Notaries practice, as suggested by the Ministry of Justice, simple Notary services would increase in price by 500 percent.

This was stated in the Ministry of Justice on Thursday at the press conference by Marius Stračkaitis, a president of Lithuanian Chamber of Notaries, when commenting Remigijus Simacius, a minister of justice, prognosis, regarding possible changes in notary service pricing.

“Based on auditor’s calculations, as of today we can conclude that having mechanically interconnecting pricing of notaries service with expenditure of notaries service, simple notaries actions would increase in price until 500 percent”, - stated M. Stračkaitis.

Lithuanian Chamber of Notaries as well as Ministry of Justice with the help of auditor’s company “Ernst& Young Baltic” carried out a research of notaries’ service pricing, based on information of 2005 – 2007. Besides, Chamber already received data regarding notaries’ earnings from the year 2008 and first two months of 2009. During 2008, notaries earnings in comparison to 2007 decreased by 21,6 percent and it is forecasted that in 2009 it will reduce from 40 to 70 percent.

According to the president of Lithuanian Chamber of Notaries, prices for notarial actions should be issued based not only on economic arguments, but also on notary responsibility when performing notarial actions and social importance of notarial actions. A decision to cheapen a share of notarial actions, according to M. Stračkaitis, will not facilitate clients’ situation, as more than ninety percent of notaries practice is comprised of simple and inexpensive notarial actions. Auditors recommend to increase the price for such services.