Digital remote notary services given the green light by the Government

At its meeting on April 22, the Government of Lithuania unanimously approved the draft amendments to the Law on the Notarial Profession, which propose to legalise remote notary acts performed using modern information technologies.

According to the draft, the place of notarial acts performed remotely is considered to be the location of the notary's office. A notary can also perform notarial acts remotely for persons abroad.
A notary will be able to perform all notarial acts remotely, except for the certification of wills and the fact that a natural person is alive and in located a given area. Wills and personal wills equivalent to official wills will also not be accepted remotely.

The draft also stipulates that in order to ensure the protection of the legitimate interests of a person or the implementation of the provisions regulating the performance of notarial acts, a notary may decide not to perform a notarial act remotely. In this case, the notarial act can be performed at the office of this notary.

When performing a notarial act remotely, the notary will be obliged to establish the identity of the person, clarify the meaning and consequences of the notarial act and ascertain the intention of the person, which will be confirmed by a qualified electronic signature. Notaries will have to ensure the security and cyber security of electronic information, use appropriate technical and organisational means of personal data processing, and properly transfer data to state registers and information systems.

All these measures are assured by the common information technology platform of the Chamber of Notaries.

The draft amendments to the Law stipulate that electronic documents certified by a notary must be signed with a qualified electronic signature.

Upon the approval of the Government, the draft amendments to the Law on Notaries will be submitted to the Seimas for consideration.