Egzamin Notarialny common mistakes
Egzamin Notarialny · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Citing a statute article number and its content from memory in the deed's recitals without checking the current consolidated text, so the deed cites a provision that has been renumbered, repealed or given new wording (e.g. invoking a procedural article that was moved by a large amendment).
Candidates memorise article numbers from outdated study materials and treat the number as the fact; under exam pressure they reproduce the number without verifying the wording, and Polish civil procedure and land-register provisions are amended frequently.
What to do instead
Build a habit of citing provisions from the official consolidated text (obwieszczenie Marszałka Sejmu) during preparation, and in every drafted document cite the provision together with the act's full title and the date of the consolidated text used; if the exact wording is uncertain at exam time, describe the legal effect in the recital rather than paraphrasing statutory text.
Drafting a notarial deed of transfer of ownership (sale, donation, contribution in kind) without checking the land register's legal status and without listing the encumbrances, rights and claims entered in Dział III and Dział IV, then omitting the purchaser's consent to assume the mortgage debt or failing to address a pre-emption right.
Candidates focus on the essentialia negotii (parties, object, price) and treat the register as background; the exam tests whether the notary's duty of care extends to disclosing the actual legal position of the property, and candidates under-rehearse the register-extract workflow.
What to do instead
Adopt a fixed checklist for every property deed: current register extract (including Dział III and IV), whether the seller's title matches the register, existing mortgages and their effect on the transfer, statutory or contractual pre-emption rights, and a recital confirming the extract was presented and read out; practise this on full register extracts, not summaries.
Treating the notarial deed and the land-register application as one act and missing the procedural requirements of the wniosek: wrong or missing wskazanie księgi wieczystej, no dołączony dokument establishing the change, no proof of the notary's authority, or failure to sign and seal the application as required.
Candidates conflate substantive validity of the transfer with the formal success of the registration application; the exam frequently asks for the application as a separate document and candidates reproduce the deed instead of the application.
What to do instead
Draft the application as a standalone document with all formal elements (court, numer księgi wieczystej, participants, description of the requested entry, list of attachments, signature and seal), and separately draft the deed; practise pairs of documents (deed + application) so the distinction becomes automatic.
Producing a deed that omits the mandatory formal elements: no reading out of the deed, no indication that it was read and accepted, no signatures of all parties on each page, missing notary's seal, or no mention of the parties' identity documents and their capacity to act.
Candidates concentrate on the substantive legal content and treat formalities as boilerplate to be skimmed; the notarial form is constitutive for many acts, and examiners award or deduct points specifically for formal completeness.
What to do instead
Memorise and rehearse a fixed formal skeleton for the deed (date and place, notary's identification, party identification and capacity, subject matter, declarations, reading out and approval, signatures, seal, number of pages) and apply it to every drafted document in practice, including short deeds where the temptation to abbreviate is greatest.
Calculating the tax due on a civil-law act (PCC, inheritance and donation tax, tax on civil-law transactions) without correctly identifying the taxpayer, the taxable base and the applicable exemption, e.g. applying the close-family exemption to a person outside the statutory circle or using the market value instead of the value declared by the parties where the statute permits it.
Candidates mix up the different taxes and their separate rules on base, rate and exemptions; the notary's role as płatnik and the collection duties are tested separately from substantive civil law and are often under-prepared.
What to do instead
Build a one-page comparison table for each tax (who is the taxpayer, who is the płatnik, what is the base, what are the rates, what are the exemptions, what are the deadlines and the notary's reporting duties) and apply it to concrete family scenarios; verify the statutory circle of close family and the conditions of each exemption against the act's current wording.
Drafting a will or inheritance document that mixes forms (e.g. a notarial will containing a clause that only works in a holographic will) or that fails to distinguish between powołanie do spadku, zapis zwykły, zapis windykacyjny and polecenie, and ignores the reserved share (zachowek) claims of omitted heirs.
Candidates learn inheritance institutions as definitions rather than as drafting instruments and do not test whether the chosen instrument achieves the testator's stated intent within the limits of the law.
What to do instead
For each inheritance instrument, write the clause that creates it and the clause that fails to create it, then check the effect against the rules on zachowek and on the formal requirements of the notarial will; practise redrafting a badly drafted will into a correct one and explain each change.
Forming or amending a company (sp. z o.o., S.A., spółka komandytowa) with a deed that omits mandatory elements of the articles of association, misstates the contribution and its payment, or fails to attach the required statements and lists (e.g. list of shareholders, statements on contributions), and does not address the registration application and the company's representation.
Candidates treat company formation as a civil-law contract and miss the corporate-law mandatory content and the registration procedure; the interaction between the Commercial Companies Code and the land-register/company-register procedure is rarely rehearsed in full.
What to do instead
Draft a complete formation package end to end (deed with articles of association, list of shareholders, statements, registration application with attachments) for each company type, and check every mandatory article of the articles of association against the code; repeat until the package can be produced from a blank page.
Ignoring conflicts of interest and the notary's duty of impartiality: drafting a deed between close relatives or between the notary's own family members, acting for both sides without checking whether the act is permitted, or accepting a power of attorney from a person whose interest conflicts with the notary's duty to protect the weaker party.
Candidates focus on technical correctness and treat ethics as a separate, softer subject; the professional-ethics questions are concrete and fact-pattern based, and candidates do not apply the prohibition rules to the facts before them.
What to do instead
Work through the ethics provisions as a checklist applied to each fact pattern (who is the notary, who are the parties, what is the relationship, is the act prohibited, what must the notary refuse and what must be recorded), and practise short fact patterns where the correct answer is refusal or disclosure rather than drafting.
Treating an administrative-law issue in a notarial act as irrelevant: failing to check whether a permit, licence or administrative decision is required before the act (e.g. for disposal of real property by a public entity, for a division of land, or for a change of use), and failing to note the administrative conditions in the deed.
Candidates compartmentalise subjects and do not connect the civil-law act to the administrative preconditions that determine its validity or enforceability; the exam deliberately crosses domains.
What to do instead
For each property and corporate transaction, run an administrative-preconditions check (land-use plan, division decision, permits, public-entity consent) and record the result in the deed's recitals; practise fact patterns where the missing permit makes the act defective.
Producing a procedurally correct but legally empty draft: recitals that restate the parties' intentions without legal effect, no clear dispositive clause, no statement of the legal basis for the transfer, and no allocation of costs and fees, so the document cannot be registered or enforced as drafted.
Candidates write narrative prose instead of operative clauses and do not test the draft against the question 'what does this document legally achieve and what will the court or register do with it'; time pressure encourages filling pages rather than structuring the act.
What to do instead
Draft with a fixed structure (parties and capacity, legal basis, operative declarations, representations and warranties, consents, costs and fees, formalities) and after each draft write a one-paragraph memo stating the legal effect and the registration outcome; have the memo checked against the draft so gaps become visible.