Burkina Faso Notaire Concours common mistakes
Burkina Faso Notaire Concours · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Reciting the conditions of Article 815 of the Code des personnes et de la famille (majority at 20, emancipation at 16) but being unable to apply them to a concrete deed, e.g. refusing or accepting a minor's signature on a sale without first verifying emancipation and authorisation of the conseil de famille.
Candidates memorise ages and article numbers in isolation because revision is done by re-reading the code, never by drafting clauses or solving short fact patterns; the concours tests application, not recitation.
What to do instead
For each major civil-status rule (majority, emancipation, tutelle, absence, name change), write a five-line deed extract where the rule operates, then annotate which document proves the fact and which authorisation is required. Redo the exercise under timed conditions on past-style fact patterns.
Treating the regime matrimonial and the liquidation of the succession as one operation: drafting a liquidation act that mixes the couple's community property with the deceased's estate without first fixing the regime, the date of dissolution and the composition of each mass.
The chapters on regimes and on successions are revised separately, so candidates never practise the sequencing (dissolution, liquidation, puis partage successoral) that real notarial practice requires.
What to do instead
Drill a standard three-stage template: (1) determine and prove the regime and its dissolution date; (2) draw up the récolement and liquidation of the regime with valuation of each asset; (3) only then liquidate the succession and the quotités available. Apply it to at least six complete family scenarios covering polygamy, community and separation of property.
Confusing the notary's duty of advice with a duty to guarantee the client's declarations: the candidate writes an act stating that the notary 'certifies' the seller's ownership or the absence of mortgages without mentioning the preliminary formalities (état hypothécaire, verification of title, identity and capacity checks).
Deontology is revised as a list of prohibitions rather than as a set of positive verification obligations, so candidates cannot articulate what the notary actually checks and what remains the parties' responsibility.
What to do instead
Build a one-page pre-drafting checklist per act type (vente immobilière, donation, constitution de société) listing each verification, its source document and its legal basis. Practise drafting the 'mentions' clauses that record these verifications, and rehearse oral answers on the notary's personal liability versus the parties' declarations.
Drafting a company constitution (statuts) of a SARL or SA using generic clauses copied from memory, omitting the mandatory mentions (form, denomination, siège, objet, durée, capital, apports, gérance, exercice social) and the rules on transfer of shares, while ignoring the AUSCGIE and the Burkinabè commercial register formalities.
Company law is revised through definitions of company types rather than through the production of an actual deed, so the mandatory content of statuts and the registration steps are never memorised in operational form.
What to do instead
Draft complete statuts for a SARL and for an SA from a blank page, then check them against the statutory list of mandatory mentions. Add a procedural timeline (statuts, dépôt du capital, immatriculation au RCCM, publication) and repeat with a cooperative and a société civile.
Handling a land transaction on the basis of the customary or informal documents presented by the parties (acte de vente sous seing privé, attestation d'attribution, simple délibération villageoise) without verifying whether the land is registered, in the process of registration, or held under a titre foncier, and without checking the applicable urban planning rules.
The Burkinabè land regime (régime foncier, domains of the State, titres fonciers, lotissement) is often studied only as a historical narrative, so candidates cannot map a real file onto the correct legal regime and the correct authority.
What to do instead
Create a decision tree that starts from the land status (titre foncier, permis urbain d'habiter, domaine de l'État, zone non lotie) and leads to who may transact, which authorisation is needed and which instrument is drafted. Test the tree on ten realistic fact patterns including litigation and expropriation.
Conflating the public-law rules on State property, public procurement, expropriation for public utility and decentralisation with the private-law rules on ownership, and consequently drafting an act or a memorandum that applies the wrong regime and the wrong competent authority.
Administrative law is revised as isolated definitions of public service and legality, without connecting them to the notary's daily work on public land, communal property and public-interest declarations.
What to do instead
Write short comparative tables: public domain versus private property, expropriation versus negotiated sale, central State versus commune competence. Then draft a two-page note advising a client whose land is affected by a declaration of public utility, citing the procedure step by step.
Computing registration duties and capital gains on a property transfer using a single flat rate and forgetting the taxable base (price versus market value), the exemptions and the declarative obligations of the notary as collecting intermediary.
Fiscal rules are memorised as lists of rates without practising a full computation, so arithmetic, base determination and filing deadlines collapse under exam pressure.
What to do instead
Solve ten complete tax computations on realistic figures (sale of built and unbuilt land, donation, capital increase, registration of a lease), each time stating the base, the rate, the exemption analysis, the payer and the deadline. Verify every figure a second time as a separate step.
Answering questions on employment contracts and social protection with general principles only, unable to state the rules on dismissal, notice, leave, or the notary's own obligations as an employer (registration of employees, contributions to the social security fund).
Labour law is treated as a minor subject and skipped in revision, yet it appears in the concours and is directly relevant to running a notarial office.
What to do instead
Study the labour code and the social security scheme through a single practical case: recruit a clerk, draft the contract, calculate a payslip, then simulate a dismissal with notice and severance. Learn the registration and contribution obligations and the role of the labour inspectorate.
Drafting the procedural part of an enforcement file (saisie immobilière, saisie conservatoire, distribution of proceeds) without stating the competent court, the required notices, the deadlines and the rank of creditors, producing a narrative that would be unenforceable in practice.
Civil procedure and enforcement are revised as a list of actions and jurisdictions, not as chronological sequences, so candidates omit steps and deadlines when they must describe a whole procedure.
What to do instead
For each enforcement route, draw a numbered timeline with the act, the authority, the addressee and the deadline, then write a model procedural memorandum for a mortgage enforcement ending in the distribution of the price. Self-test by covering the timeline and reconstructing it from memory.
Writing the French drafting exercise in an imprecise register: mixing tenses, using ambiguous pronouns, omitting the identification of parties and the date, and failing to structure the act (exposé, dispositif, clauses, signatures) in a way that a notary could sign.
Candidates treat the written paper as an essay and never practise the fixed architecture and formulaic precision of notarial drafting, so even good legal knowledge loses marks on form.
What to do instead
Produce one full deed per week under time constraints, using a fixed skeleton (comparution, exposé, énonciation des faits, dispositions, clauses financières, élection de domicile, signatures), then self-correct against a checklist of precision faults: undefined terms, ambiguous references, missing annexes, inconsistent dates and figures. Read the final text aloud to catch syntax errors.