Information on data protection

1. Who is responsible for protecting your data and who can you get in touch with?

I, the notary, am responsible for the processing of your personal data. You can contact me or my data protection officer via the notary's office for all data protection enquiries. You can find all contact details on this website under "Contact".

2. Which data do I process and where do the data come from?

I process personal data which I receive from you or from third parties commissioned by you (e.g. lawyer, tax advisor, estate agent, credit institution), such as

  • personal data, e.g. first name and surname, date and place of birth, nationality, marital status; in individual cases your birth registration number;
  • contact data, e.g. postal address, telephone and fax numbers, e-mail address;
  • in the case of real estate purchases, your tax identification number;
  • in certain cases, e.g. in the case of marriage contracts, last wills, inheritance contracts or adoptions, additional data on your family situation and on your assets as well as, if applicable, information on your health or other sensitive data, e.g. because these might serve to document your legal capacity;
  • in certain cases also data regarding your legal relationships with third parties, such as file numbers or loan or account numbers with credit institutions.

I also process data from public registers, e.g. land registers, commercial registers and registers of associations.

3. For which purposes and on which legal basis are the data processed?

As a notary, I hold a public office. My professional services are carried out in the public interest, specifically in order to prevent legal disputes and uphold the judicial administration, and in the exercise of official authority (art. 6 sec. 1 s. 1 lit. e) of the General Data Protection Regulation (DS-GVO)).

Your data will be processed exclusively in order to carry out the notarial public services requested by you and, if applicable, other persons involved in a transaction, in accordance with my professional regulations, i.e. for the preparation of drafts, for the notarisation and execution of deeds or for consultations. Personal data are therefore only ever processed on the basis of the applicable professional and procedural provisions, which are essentially derived from the Federal Notarial Code and the Notarisation Act. Furthermore, these provisions also result from my legal obligation to process the required data (art. 6 sec. 1 s. 1 lit. c) DS-GVO). Failure to provide the data requested by me from you would therefore make me having to refuse the (further) execution of the official transaction.

4. To whom are the data passed on?

As a notary, I am subject to a statutory duty of confidentiality. This duty of confidentiality also applies to all my employees and other persons commissioned by me.

I may therefore only pass on your data if and insofar as I am obliged to do so in individual cases, e.g., due to my obligations to notify tax authorities or public registers such as the land register, commercial register or register of associations, central register of last wills, register of provident funds, courts such as probate, guardianship or family courts or other authorities. Within the framework of professional and official supervision, I may also be obliged to provide information to the Chamber of Notaries or supervisory authorities, which in turn are subject to an official duty of confidentiality as well.

Otherwise, your data will only be passed on if I am obliged to do so on the basis of declarations made by you or if you have requested that they be passed on.

Communication by e-mail (e.g. answering enquiries, sending drafts) is possible. Outgoing e-mails are sent using transport encryption ("Start-TLS"), which protects the content of the e-mail from unauthorised access by third parties during the transmission process from our mail server to the mail server of your e-mail provider. Please note that transport encryption can only be implemented if the server used by your e-mail provider supports it.

Transport encryption only affects the transmission process and does not protect the content of the email from being accessed at the mail server. This means that unauthorised access by the email provider or a third party who has gained access to the mail servers is possible. End-to-end encryption against this is not offered. Furthermore, it cannot be ruled out that the transport encryption is decrypted and that the content of the e-mail is accessed during the transmission process. You therefore have the possibility to object to e-mail communication. In this case, we will communicate with you in writing using postal services.

5. Will data be transferred to third countries?

Your personal data will only be transferred to third countries at your specific request or if and insofar as a party to the deed is domiciled in a third country.

6. How long will your data be stored?

I process and store your personal data within the scope of my statutory obligations.

According to § 50 sec. 1 and § 51 sec. 1 Regulations on Notarial Files and Registers (NotAktVV), the following periods of retention apply to the storage of notarial documents:

  • register of deeds, register of inheritance contracts, register of names to the register of deeds and collection of deeds (documents before 1 July 2022) including the inheritance contracts kept separately (§ 18 sec. 4 Professional Regulations for Notaries (DONot) old version), electronic register of deeds, special collection of deeds, collection of inheritance contracts, electronic collection of deeds: 100 years,
  • deposit book, mass book, register of names for the mass book, list of escrow accounts, electronic registers of deposits, collection of deeds (documents since 1 July 2022), general files: 30 years,
  • ancillary files: 7 years; the notary may determine a longer period of retention in writing no later than the last point in time the content is processed, e.g. in the case of testamentary dispositions or in the event of potential recourse; the determination may also be made generally for individual types of legal transactions such as testamentary dispositions.

Once the period of retention has expired, your data will be deleted and the paper documents destroyed, unless I am obliged to store them for a longer period in accordance with art. 6 sec. 1 s. 1 lit. c) DS-GVO due to obligations under tax and commercial law (such as the German Commercial Code, Criminal Code, Money Laundering Act or the German Fiscal Code) as well as professional regulations for the purpose of collision checks.

7. Know your rights

You have the following rights:

  • the right to request information about whether I process personal data about you, if so, for which purposes I process the data and which categories of personal data I process, to whom the data have been passed, if applicable, how long the data have to be stored, if applicable, and which rights you have.
  • the right to have inaccurate personal data relating to you that are stored by me corrected. You also have the right to have me complete an incomplete data record stored by me.
  • the right to request deletion of the personal data concerning you, provided that there is a legally provided reason for deletion (cf. art. 17 DS-GVO) and the processing of your data is not required for the fulfilment of a legal obligation or for other overriding reasons within the meaning of the DS-GVO.
  • the right to demand that I process your data only in a restricted manner, e.g. to assert legal claims or for reasons of important public interest, while I am, for example, examining your claim for rectification or objection, or, if applicable, if I reject your claim for erasure (cf. art. 18 DS-GVO).
  • the right to object to processing where it is necessary for me to carry out my tasks in the public interest or to exercise my official authority, if there are grounds for the objection arising from your particular situation.  
  • the right to contact the supervisory authorities with a data protection complaint. The competent supervisory authority for notaries in Bavaria is the Bavarian State Commissioner for Data Protection, Wagmüllerstraße 18, 80538 Munich. The competent supervisory authority for notaries in Rhineland-Palatinate is the Rhineland-Palatinate State Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information, postal code 30 40, 55020 Mainz.

The complaint can be filed with any supervisory authority, irrespective of its competence.