Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

notarity is Europe's modern platform for digital notarial services (Remote Online Notarizations). With notarity, you can have documents certified or notarised at any time and from anywhere. We have made it our mission to make going to the notary:in as easy as ordering a pizza. We want to make notarial services more convenient, faster and less complicated.

With notarity, you can use notarial services (therefore mainly notarisation and notarial acts) at any time and from anywhere.

(Note: For reasons of better readability, the simultaneous use of articles, pronouns and adjectives in masculine, feminine and miscellaneous form is dispensed with and the feminine form is always used as a substitute. Nouns are used with a colon in the opposite direction. Of course, this always refers to all persons regardless of their gender).

notarity is a growing technology company from Austria based in Vienna. Our team consists of experts from the fields of law, software development and business. More information about our team can be found here.

In order to make our service possible, we work together with partner notaries. No notaries work at notarity itself and notarity does not offer any services that are subject to the professional and activity reservation of notaries.

At present, notarity is still in a beta phase. The platform is already fully functional for the legally effective creation of notarial deeds. However, there may still be functional errors (so-called bugs). Also, notarity does not yet have all the planned features. We will continuously expand our offer. If you register for our newsletter, we will be happy to keep you up to date (https://notarity.com).

Yes, since spring 2020, it has been legally possible to carry out digital notarisation in Austria.

 

Almost all notarial services in Austria can be carried out via notarity. The only exceptions are the preparation of testamentary dispositions (i.e. in particular wills and other legal transactions on death) and the handling of probate proceedings.

Yes, you can use notarity from anywhere and at any time. There are no geographical restrictions for you. With notarity, you can certify your documents from the comfort of your home office or even from the beach.

Yes, Austria has concluded bilateral agreements with Germany (as well as with the vast majority of European countries) on the basis of which notarial deeds are generally exempt from proof of authenticity. According to these agreements, notarial deeds from Austria are in principle directly presumed to be authentic. Notarial or other official deeds from Austria can therefore be as a rule (without apostille/overauthentication) can be used as public deeds in Germany. German formal requirements can thus also be fulfilled before Austrian notaries. A deed certified/authenticated in Austria can therefore be presented, for example, before a German district court or commercial register. 

In individual cases, however, exceptions or legal or factual obstacles may exist. We will be happy to advise you on this together with our partner notaries. Please do not hesitate to contact us ([email protected]).

At present, only Austrian notaries certify documents at notarity. Whether a document certified/notarised at notarity can be used in another country therefore depends on the respective bilateral agreements between the respective country and Austria and the requirements of the individual case.

We will be happy to advise you on this together with our partner notaries. Please do not hesitate to contact us ([email protected]).

Here it is necessary to distinguish between certifications and notarial acts.

Notarisation in a language other than German is usually no problem. Notaries can certify signatures even if they do not understand the language of the signed text. Please always discuss the details with the respective partner notary.

In order to record a notarial deed in a language other than German, a notary needs an additional qualification. Some of our partner notaries have the additional qualification to perform notarisations in English. We are working on offering other languages as well.

If you have further questions about files in English or other foreign languages, please feel free to contact us ([email protected]).

At present, we work exclusively with partner notaries who are authorised to practice in Austria. Therefore, only notarial appointments according to Austrian law can be booked at present. 

We are constantly working to expand our services and to include partner notaries from other jurisdictions.

However, documents issued via notarity can be used outside of Austria under the circumstances described above.

The notarial appointment basically works like in the analogue world, only in the course of a video conference. Physical presence at the notary's office is therefore no longer necessary. You can attend notarial appointments at any time and from anywhere.

You must first register on the platform and then verify your identity using the video identity procedure. As soon as the verification of your identity is completed, you can perform notarial acts via notarity.

The notary appointment is made by a partner notary. This person can invite you to an appointment. If you do not yet have a partner notary, you can inform us by clicking on the button "I do not have a notary" - we will then try to find a suitable partner notary for you.

As soon as you accept the appointment invitation, you have access to the appointment dashboard with all the necessary information about the appointment (date, time, documents, etc.). Here you also have the option of adding documents yourself. An (insecure) mail dispatch is no longer necessary.

At the agreed appointment, you meet your partner notary in the appointment ("Join appointment"). You will then be connected to your partner notary by live video call. The partner notary confirms your identity using the evidence data from the video identification and is then present when you sign the document with a qualified electronic signature.

After the appointment, the partner notary will sign the document with her official signature and upload it to the appointment dashboard. You can then retrieve and download it from there.

The uploaded document is the original document. It is genuinely digital, there is no physical document.

After completion of the notary appointment you have thirty days to download the documents. After that, we will delete the documents. Don't worry, we will warn you in a timely manner before the documents are deleted.

You will need a valid passport or identity card to verify your identity. Please also keep this identity document handy during your notary appointment. Verification of your identity with a driving licence is not possible.

Identity cards and passports from the DACH region will be - Validity accepted without restrictions. For the identity documents from all For information on other countries, please refer to the country list of our identification partner, which is available at the following link: Link.

 

No, you only have to verify your identity once and therefore only have to go through a videoident procedure once. You can then make as many notarial appointments as you wish with as many partner notaries as you wish.

Your verification is valid as long as your identity document, but for a maximum of five years. After your identity document expires or after five years at the latest, you must verify your identity again.

For your registration, you initially only need an email address. With this, you can register with notarity and use the platform to a limited extent.

In order to be able to use notarity to its full extent, you must verify your identity by means of the (legally required) video identification procedure. You can only attend notary appointments after successful verification.

For this purpose, we have integrated identity Trust Management AG, which carries out the video identification procedure. You can start this procedure in your profile and will then be redirected to the website of identity Trust Management AG. Please have your identification document (passport or ID card) ready and follow the instructions of identity Trust Management AG.

The video identification procedure takes about 10 minutes. As a rule, we have the evidence data at the latest 10 minutes after successful completion of the video identification procedure.

In the course of the videoident procedure, you will be asked to set a password. Please remember your password, keep it in a safe place accessible only to you or use an encrypted password manager for this purpose. We do not know your password and cannot reset it. If you have forgotten your password, you will unfortunately have to repeat the verification process. In this case, please contact us directly so that we can reset your verification status.

You can check the status of your verification at any time in your profile area. If the verification was not successful, you can start the process again there.

Currently, appointments are made between you and the respective partner notary outside of notarity. It will soon be possible to book notarial appointments with our partner notaries directly via notarity.

You can let us know via the button "I don't have a notary:in" if you do not yet have a partner notary:in. We can support you in your search.

No, you only need a web browser (we recommend Google Chrome) and a smartphone/mobile phone. The notarial act takes place in the web browser. You do not need to download any additional software.

However, we recommend that you install the Mobile ID app (see below) on your smartphone. This allows you to sign without a signature password.

Yes, that doesn't matter for now. You can register with notarity at any time. If you are looking for a notary's office, you can let us know by clicking on the button "I have no notary:in". After clicking the corresponding button, you can send us details of the service you need or your legal concern by entering data. 

We will then try to find a suitable partner notary for you from our pool of partner notaries. Of course, you are under no obligation to mandate or instruct a partner notary suggested by us.

Under no circumstances do we charge a fee for the mediation between you and our partner notaries.

For a notarial appointment at notarity, all you need is an internet-enabled device (see below) and a web browser. Some of our partner notaries may want to see your identification document in the course of the final identification. It is therefore advisable to have this document handy during the notarial appointment.

You sign during a notarial appointment with a Qualified Electronic Signature (QES). Our partner, Swisscom, issues you a QES in the course of the videoident procedure.

You can choose between two variants. Either you sign each time with a signature password and SMS-TAN (One Time Password) or you install the app "Mobile ID" on your smartphone. Your smartphone is linked to your telephone number and instead of entering the signature password and SMS-TAN you only have to open the app and release the signature there. We therefore recommend installing the "Mobile-ID" app. You can find the app in the Apple Appstore or Google Playstore under the following links.

Apple Appstore:

https://apps.apple.com/de/app/mobile-id/id1500393675

Google Playstore:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.swisscom.mobileid&hl=de_AT&gl=US

 

Yes, the Mobile ID App can also be downloaded later. However, it is no longer possible to switch from the Mobile ID App to the signature password.

No, in the course of verifying your account with notarity, you will be issued a Qualified Electronic Signature (QES). In principle, you can also use this for other applications.

For security reasons, we cannot reset your signature password. If you have forgotten your signature password, you will need to verify your identity again.

Please remember your signature password, keep it in a safe place accessible only to you or use an encrypted password manager for this purpose.

If you install the Mobile-ID app, you no longer need a signature password.

If you have forgotten your signature password, please contact us directly so that we can reset your verification status ([email protected]).

For companies that have regular notary appointments, we offer customised solutions and processes. Feel free to contact us at any time at ([email protected]).

In principle, notarity can be run from any web browser, even on mobile devices. At present, notarity is not yet optimised for use on mobile devices. We therefore currently recommend (in the beta phase) the use of a desktop PC, notebook or tablet. This should at least meet the following minimum technical hardware and software requirements:

  • Processor: Intel Pentium or compatible processor - 2 GHz, 32 bit;
  • Operating system (Windows 7 or newer or MacOS 10.5 or newer);
  • Web browser (Google Chrome in the current version);
  • Webcam (minimum resolution 640×480 pixels) and microphone;
  • Stable internet connection (minimum transmission rate for downloads and uploads: 10 mbits/s).

In addition, for the second factor of the Qualified Electronic Signature, you need either a mobile phone with SMS function and mobile phone reception or a smartphone with the Mobile ID App and internet connection.

Book appointment now

Use of cookies

We use cookies to make the use of our website as comfortable as possible and to analyse the traffic on our website. More information about the different types of cookies we use can be found in our Privacy policy. There, the cookie settings can be adjusted at any time.