Differences in perception: How do professionals and the French population view notaries?
December 16, 2021 9:40 amIn April 2021, Walters Kluwers (an information services company) and OpinionWay carried out a study* among 201 notaries and notary clerks and 1000 French people over the age of 18 to gather views of the notary industry. The study highlights the differences between notary professionals and the French population concerning the role and usefulness of notarial professionals.
1st Finding: The French are mostly satisfied with their notaries
Three quarters of French people declare having already used notarial services, mainly for buying or selling properties (51%) and nine out of ten said they were satisfied (46% satisfied in total). Almost four in ten French people choose a notary firm based on recommendations from family (21%) or rom professionals (16%) and 28% choose a notary based on geographical proximity.
Thus, the notary profession is characterized in the following terms: “giving good advice, reliable and skillful”. Notary firms are therefore recognized for their skillfulness, reliability and advisory role with their clients. Confidence remains the primary consideration when selecting a notary firm, which is followed by the quality of services and relationships.
Despite this, there are some areas that the profession could benefit from improvement. The amount of fees being one of them, but also the speed of the service and the modernity of the offices.
2nd Finding: The usefulness of the notary profession
Nine out of ten notaries consider their profession “very” useful to society, whereas six in ten French people are yet to be full convinced of this fact. Despite this, notaries are quite optimistic for the future of their profession in the short and medium term, whilst there is more of a mixed opinion surrounding the survival of the notary profession amongst the French population. In fact, according to them, the digitalization and simplification of notarial cases could impact the future usefulness of the notary profession in society.
3rd Finding: A ‘necessary’ transformation surrounding digital and customer relations
The study reveals that nine out of ten notaries say thy have noticed an improvement in he way they practice their profession, in particular with new technologies. 86% of notaries say that digital technology can help them improve their services and therefore their profession will be able to become more important and prominent. Their advisory role will improve. Notarial professionals say they have prepared for this, which have been accelerated due to the disruption caused by the Covid health crisis, namely sharing documents in remote formats (93%) and remote appointments (90%).
‘Our study shows that the Covid crisis has rapidly accelerated the digital transformation of the notary profession’ Hubert Chemla, CEO of Wolters Kluwer France, commented, ‘In light of this context, we support notaries with bespoke material and practical tools to allow them to save time and develop their advisory role. Our teams of experts have developed Solveo Notaire a new solution that we will be launching in a few weeks’
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