Proposition 53K1661

Projet de loi modifiant la loi du 25 ventôse an XI contentant organisation du notariat en ce qui concerne le compte de qualité des notaires et la loi hypothécaire du 16 décembre 1831 en ce qui concerne le compte de qualité des avocats, des notaires et des huissiers de justice.

General information ¶

Authors

CD&V Sonja Becq, Leen Dierick, Raf Terwingen, Jef Van den Bergh, Servais Verherstraeten
LE Christian Brotcorne
Open Vld Sabien Lahaye-Battheu, Willem-Frederik Schiltz

Submission date

July 8, 2011

Official page

Visit

Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

lawyer bank deposit consumer protection financial solvency bailiff notary account claim

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

Groen CD&V Vooruit Ecolo LE PS | SP ∉ Open Vld N-VA LDD MR VB

Contact form ¶

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Discussion ¶

Oct. 8, 2013 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

Mr. Speaker, as you can see, we have worked hard and written many reports. I refer to my written report.

Mr. Speaker, dear colleagues, Mrs. Minister – absent – it has taken almost three years for the legislator to respond to the Court of Cassation’s judgment of 27 June 2011 on the accounts of third parties. It was probably too long, but it is true that the text today discussed is not limited to the strictly necessary: in addition to protecting them, we have framed the management of quality accounts.

If the lawyers were the applicants of such a law, the citizens are indeed the first beneficiaries. By ensuring the protection of quality accounts, we obviously strengthen the confidence that the justiciable must be able to place in those who accompany him or who play the role of intermediaries before, during and after judicial proceedings.

It is therefore the notions of trust and access to justice that are at the heart of this proposal and allow us to create an exceptional regime for organized and widely framed legal professions.

As for the proposal itself, we have chosen, in accordance with classical doctrine, not to create a separation of heritage properly. In this same logic, we have also ensured that inaccessibility is not absolute since the amounts deposited on these accounts will not be able to be seized as long as they respect their destination.

So this is a common sense proposal that the PS group and I will support.

Thank you Mrs. I will simply point out that, if the minister is not present, the government is nevertheless represented and that these are bills.

Mr. Speaker, first and foremost, we are very pleased that there is finally an arrangement for the problem of the third-party account, ⁇ after the judgment of the first chamber of the Court of Cassation, after the French-language chamber of the Court of Cassation, more specifically on 27 January 2011, which has increased the legal uncertainty. They found that, without a legal arrangement, the funds, wherever they come from, deposited on a third-party account in the client’s name and for the client’s account by a lawyer form part of that lawyer’s assets and therefore do not constitute separate assets from that lawyer’s personal assets.

By that judgment, the Court of Cassation undermined the legal certainty that, in the event of merger, the funds on the third-party account do not form part of the assets of an intermediary, unless a special regulation by law provides for this.

Thus, by that cassation sentence, a legal arrangement was required. For this reason, the N-VA has also submitted a bill. We are pleased that there will be a regulation, although we proposed a more general regulation, unlike the proposal that we are now put to the vote. Our proposal, which was much more general in nature, would, in addition to the occupations already bound by a deontological code, also, for example, allow merchants to offer their customers the assurance that they would be able to recover certain paid advances in case of bankruptcy.

For example, a client makes a marriage list. Whoever wants to give them a gift, then pays the merchant. If the merchant then goes bankrupt, the brides will lose their gift and the money paid for it. Our proposal would have solved this problem. Unfortunately, now only that specific arrangement is provided. That is why we will abstain from voting on this bill.