The role of notary public in family matters in Serbian law, with reference to the notary public practice in the city of Niš

Abstract

The notary public service in the judicial system of the Republic of Serbia was introduced by adopting the Public Notaries Act, which envisaged wide powers of public notaries in family law matters. In this regard, the paper explores the insufficiently precise substantive law provisions of the Family Act and the Public Notaries Act, points to the legal gaps in the regulation of certain procedural issues, and makes proposals for future amendments of the domestic legislation in this area. In particular, the paper proposes the amendments to the Family Act provisions on the legal maintenance agreement, prescribing additional instructions that the notary public must communicate to the parties when concluding a marriage contract, regulating the form of the declaration of recognition of illegitimate paternity before the notary public, as well as the declaration by which a spouse expressed consent that the other spouse/partner shall manage their legal affairs and dispose of their joint property. The paper also promotes the expansion of the form of notarial record to the legal affairs of disposing of higher-value movable property of contractually incompetent persons, as well as the possibility of introducing a consensual divorce before a notary public. To obtain a better insight into the practical consequences of the envisaged legislative solutions, the paper presents the results of research on the actions of public notaries in the aforementioned family law matters in the territory of the City of Niš in the period from 1 September 2014 to 15 June 2024.

Keywords

• notaries public
• family law relations
• notaries public practice