| I am neither from Germany nor USA, thus can only assume it's similar to what I experienced elsewhere in EU. Notary's job in real estate deals is (briefly) to check that property is good for sale (has all necessary documents, up to date drawings, liabilities (mortgages, upstanding payments for services), there's no court orders upon the property, etc.) and inform seller, buyer (and creditor if there's a mortgage), what documents to bring and who pays who by which date. Also sends copies to national registry of real estate. It does not matter if property is a shack for 10k€ or mansion for 5M€ - you pay a percentage on the value. I'd even argue that more expensive properties are easier to work with, because rich owners have their papers up to date, etc. And notary gets cool 50-100k€ from such property deal just to go through a list of procedural checkboxes and filling in blanks in a standard contract. I don't know what actual legal liability for notaries exist if there's serious disputes, but I haven't heard any. Biggest real estate scandals are when someone develops somewhere where it's not allowed, but got approval through corruption. Notaries neither help, nor care here, because their responsiblity is only check that papers are good (not that they were acquired through corruption). I forgot what's the actual percentage in my country, but it's in ballpark as for OP (maybe less - around ~1%, which is still too much). To make it worse: this fee is mandated by law and has a cap. So if you are top 1% property owner - you get reduced rates for notary! I don't know what real estate angents are responsible for in USA, but notary is not a real estate agent. Where I live you can buy/sell without real estate agent (but many people still do), notary is mandatory (with law mandated fees) though. |