THE FOUR (4) PILLARS OF MY PHILOSOPHY - WORKING METHOD
Briefly:
1.-ACCURATE MAPPING OF CASES
[TAKING OF THE MOST DETAILED HISTORY OF THE CASE - STUDY OF THE CASE FROM A LEGAL/TAX PERSPECTIVE - WEIGHING OF THE ADVANTAGES/DISADVANTAGES OF SOLUTIONS ACCORDING TO THE OBJECTIVE OF THE CLIENT-INDICATION OF ALL THE LEGALLY CORRECT ALTERNATIVES - PROPOSAL OF RECOMMENDED PATH]
2.- LEGAL CORRECTNESS
[THOROUGH STUDY OF THE LEGISLATION RELATED TO EACH CASE - AD HOC RESEARCH ON ON-LINE LEGAL DATABASES AND LEGAL LIBRARIES - CONTINUOUS MONITORING OF LEGISLATIONS, CASE LAW DEVELOPMENTS/LIBRARY UPDATE]
3.- LINGUISTIC PERFECTION
[SOLID CONTRACT STRUCTURE – ACCURATE, ANALYTICAL SPEECH – PROPER USE OF GREEK LANGUAGE ENRICHED WITH LATIN LEGAL TERMINOLOGY]
4.- COMPREHENSIVE SERVICE
[IMMEDIATE AND TROUBLE FREE FOR THE CLIENT PROCESSING OF PROCEDURES – PROMPT SIGNING OF CONTRACTS - ELEGANT SERVICE]
Analytically:
The awareness of the key importance for the legal world and for the security of the transactions, which has the formulation, through a public (notarial) deed, of the personal and economic relations of Greeks, of citizens of Member States of the European Union and third country nationals, either as natural persons or incorporated into companies and other legal forms,
as well as the handling of cases over a number of years, where the negligence of the aforementioned importance on the part of professionals, brought (and still brings) cases before me, where the client is called on to pay (in time and money) for the correction of errors, omissions and carelessness of the past,
dictated to me a solidly structured Philosophy – Working Method, based on Four (4) Basic Principles – Pillars as mentioned above and analysed below.
In every single case, from the simplest to the most complex, from a simple Power of Attorney for a Divorce by mutual consent, up to the Private International Law-relevant contracts of Greek and foreign citizens and to every individual client, active and potential, from the multinational Company that wishes to invest in Greece up to the screenwriter, who wants to submit his screenplay or the old lady with mobility problems that wishes to draft a will at home, these four (4) principles are abided by without exception. The neglect of even one of these principles would mean that the individual Case runs the risk of not being finalized in the most legally correct, tax-financially beneficial, linguistically perfect and immediate for the client way.
Strict adherence to these Four Principles is the distinctive difference that marks the high level of the provided services and consolidates satisfied and -most importantly for me- legally and financially secure clients.
THE FOUR (4) PILLARS OF MY PHILOSOPHY - WORKING METHOD
are described in detail below:
1. ACCURATE MAPPING OF CASES
[TAKING OF THE MOST DETAILED HISTORY OF THE CASE - STUDY OF THE CASE FROM A LEGAL/TAX PERSPECTIVE - WEIGHING OF THE ADVANTAGES/DISADVANTAGES OF SOLUTIONS ACCORDING TO THE OBJECTIVE OF THE CLIENT-INDICATION OF ALL THE LEGALLY CORRECT ALTERNATIVES - PROPOSAL OF RECOMMENDED PATH]
"Ignoranti, quem portum petat, nullus suus ventus est"
[= If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favourable]
Seneca -The Younger (c. 4 BC- AD65)
Epistulae ad Lucilium no.71, sect.3
Most of the times the clients come to the Notary office with a general idea of the deed they would like to carry out, primarily having in mind the change that they would like to execute - either immediately or in the long run- in terms of their personal or financial state, without knowing in advance which legal cloak the intended action should (or would be profitable) to assume, or without knowing all the possible,from a legal perspective, ways in which it can produce the same result, or even- most importantly- without knowing the full extent of the short-term, medium-term and long-term consequences of the various alternatives.
[For example: 1- A childless client wishes to transfer two apartments in a three-storey building, which he built himself on a block of land that he had bought in the past, to his wife and sister, respectively; 2- a co-habitant couple that does not wish to marry would like, in the case of either partner’s death, to ensure the right of inheritance of either party; 3-five civil engineers would like to establish a capital company concerned with road construction and transportation projects; 4- a German businessman wishes to invest in renewable energy resources in Greece, either by establishing a Greek company himself, or by purchasing the total number of company shares of an existing Greek company]. In all the above cases can be given at least two solutions, all legally correct, however, with totally different consequences.
On other occasions, clients come to the office having arrived at a decision which is based on only part of the crucial factors or even - more ambiguous - on lessons of common experience.
In only a few cases come clients, mainly those with an official or unofficial knowledge or experience in the legal or tax field, just to ask for a notarized completion of the decision already taken.
In all three situations of incoming cases, namely ignorance, superficial knowledge and true knowledge (yes, even in the latter case for the purpose of enhancing the correctness of the client’s decision), after taking the fullest possible history of the case and taking into account:
a) the existing data (previous titles, tax returns, registry acts, court decisions, etc);
b) the financial (or the most crucial per case) facts and primarily;
c) the exact objective of the client,
after examining the existing legislation per case (civil law, tax law, building regulations, intellectual property provisions, company law, private international law provisions and often the applicable foreign law, etc) always in connection with the real case in question, after having a telephone or face-to-face conversation with the competent ad hoc bodies [e.g. with the competent Tax Office, the competent Department of the Ministry of Economy or of the Ministry of Environment, Energy and Climate Change, the Technical Chamber, the competent Financial or Technical Service of the local Municipality or Town Planning Office, etc], after finally a thorough evaluation of all the possible alternatives as well as the advantages and disadvantages thereof, all the legally correct methods, with which the intended result can be achieved, are presented in detail to the client, with all the consequences, benefits and side effects involved in each one.
Furthermore, if requested, I recommend the best legal path (depending on the clients’s intended result), thus the client has all the facts set out before him and he makes the final decision [even if I have expressed my opinion at his request].
N O T E : In cases where during the signing of a Contract the presence of a lawyer is required by law, or in the case of a dispute, or when the case concerns a significant commercial or financial magnitude, the above preparatory work (background mapping –indication of alternatives - proposal of indicative solution) usually takes place in collaboration with the clients’ Lawyers with a note that when two parties are involved, my own role remains impartial and "arbitrative".
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2. LEGAL CORRECTNESS
[THOROUGH STUDY OF THE LEGISLATION RELATED TO EACH CASE - AD HOC RESEARCH ON ON-LINE LEGAL DATABASES AND LEGAL LIBRARIES - CONTINUOUS MONITORING OF LEGISLATIONS, CASE LAW DEVELOPMENTS/LIBRARY UPDATE]
"Dans les champs de l' observation le hasard ne favorise que les esprits préparés"
[= In the fields of observation chance favours only the prepared mind.]
Louis Pasteur (1822-1895)
Speech at the inauguration of the Faculty of Science, University of Lille, 7 December 1854
Considering it a precondition for successfully accomplishing the mapping of a case, as mentioned above, as well as from a personal and broader interest in the latest news about legislative, case law and legal science, I get informed continuously on developments in legislation, case law and legal science. This is achieved: on the one hand on a daily basis from the electronic Legal Databases [e.g. NOMOS, that of the Athens Bar Association etc] and the specialised websites of Public and Private Bodies [e.g. the Hellenic Notary Association of Greece, the Notary Association of Thessaloniki, the National Printing House, the Ministry of Justice, the General Secretariat for Information Systems of the Ministry of Economy and Finance, etc], on the other hand, with the systematic and regular updating of my legal library both with an updated Bibliography that has a broad thematic and with specialised Books that relate to individual circumstances-cases, [e.g. Books-Monographies concerning the Credit Bond Loans /the Registry Acts with foreign elements/the Legal Examination of Intersexuality etc].
Furthermore, in extraordinary cases of very recent legislative developments for which there has been no case law precedent and legal articles do not provide a solid interpretation, or in disputed cases, where diametrically opposite opinions, oddly all legally correct, may be supported or are supported, in order to ensure up to 100% the legal correctness of ad hoc alternatives, to which I have concluded and intend on presenting to the client, I personally converse with the Legal Advisors of the Notary Association in Athens, or I raise the respective questions at the Seminars and Meetings that are organised by the Notary Association in order to obtain the valid assurance from my colleagues that all the recommended solutions are absolutely impervious from a legal standpoint.
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3. LINGUISTIC PERFECTION
[SOLID CONTRACT STRUCTURE – ACCURATE, ANALYTICAL SPEECH – PROPER USE OF GREEK LANGUAGE ENRICHED WITH LATIN LEGAL TERMINOLOGY]
"Die Grenzen meiner Sprache bedeuten die Grenzen meiner Welt"
[= The limits of my language mean the limits of my world]
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951)
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922)
No matter how solidly may have been constructed and stand in every individual case the first two aforementioned methodological pillars [1.-Accurate Mapping Of Cases, 2. Legal Correctness], it remains an indisputable fact – and even perceivable by those without legal knowledge – that the Appearance of a Contract, namely:
i. its Solid Structure,
ii. the Rationality of Reference in macroscopicly Clearly Divided Topics and
iii. the Consistent Citation Order e.g. of the legalization of the attending contracting parties and legal representatives, of the History of the case [e.g. in property purchases and sales contracts: the detailed descriptions mentioned in recent and older titles, backtracking to the transferees’ direct and distant acquisition titles dating back more than 20 years (protecting the security of the consecutive transfers of the property)], the Contracting Parties Declarations, the Annexes to the Contract, the submitted Tax Returns, the respective Lawyer’s Draft or the reference to the reason that it is not necessary, etc, also
iv. the Analytical Speech [e.g. in Inheritance Acceptance Deeds from a Will, the word-for-word reference of the Testator’s last will], the citation of all the applicable legislative provisions in each case, the detailed ad hoc explanation of the Value calculation method (of property, shares, company shares, etc) and the defined or definable tax method thereof,
is an extremely significant parameter, which not only facilitates the respective competent Land Registrar / Cadastre Office Supervisor/ Tax Office / Chamber Clerk, etc to assess the completeness and correctness of the contract’s contents, but primarily allows [with the detailed – and not simplified, but accurate – language] the contracting party that may not have legal knowledge, to read the contract and acquire a clear understanding of the exact transaction that he entered into.
Particular emphasis is placed on the linguistic correctness of the contracts, the accuracy – broadness of the vocabulary without the use of puristic or neologistic terms, utilizing the breadth and plasticity of the Greek language.
The enrichment of contracts, wherever permissible, with Latin legal terminology is a personal touch, the distinctive difference which in my opinion differentiates the in-depth knowledge of the legal science combined with the love of elegant writing style from the superficial "throughput" process of drafting contracts.
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4. COMPREHENSIVE SERVICE
[IMMEDIATE AND TROUBLE FREE FOR THE CLIENT PROCESSING OF PROCEDURES – PROMPT SIGNING OF CONTRACTS - ELEGANT SERVICE]
"Do more than is required. What is the distance between someone who achieves his goals consistently and those who spend their lives and careers merely following? The extra mile!"
Gary Ryan Blair (1923-)
Before becoming a Notary myself, working for several years as an assistant in colleagues’ offices, I had repeatedly detected and had already firmly realised that for the client the most important parameter, even more important than the absolute legal correctness of the contract or its linguistic perfection (which in most of the cases the client could not or was not interested in checking), at times even more important than the choice of the most financially beneficial solution was (and of course still is) the fastest, less complex and most trouble free service.
On occasions, although the essence of the services (e.g. the signing of an Inheritance Acceptance Deed) had been excellent, the client would become impatient or be displeased because of the excessive delay in signing, or the transcription of the contract or the delayed receipt of the contract’s copies [delay that made the customer feel neglected]. He was also dissatisfied because of the incovenience suffered when going to a Public Service to request the issuance of one of the required Certificates for the Contract and he realised that he had not been adequately guided by the Notary and either had to visit the Public Service again with more accurate/complete information/documents, or was served by the Officer but was called on to to apologize on behalf of the Notary for mistakes and oversights made in completing the Applications-Declarations-Documents etc.
On many occasions, when I as an assistant Notary was required to undertake such proceedings, I would pointed out all those points – obscure for the inexperienced, insignificant for the indifferent professional - on which I as a Notary would need to focus so that my customer would suffer the least possible inconvenience, would be served as quickly as possible, as trouble free as possible and as a result feel that he is important to me both as a person and as a client as is his case regardless of whether it is personal or financial in nature, large or small in magnitude.
Consistent with the Principle of Comprehensive – Immediate – Trouble free Customer Service, which given that it concerns the human factor, is the most important of the Four (4) Methodological Pillars for me - as for my clients, in every single case, from the simplest to the most complex, and for every individual client, active and potential, my priority has always been and still is a client service that is direct, prompt, simple and as trouble free as possible.
On a practical level, this means that provided that I have the minimum required details of the history of the case, I offer the customer the following in order:
Α. A Clear Time Schedule for Completing the Case
[with minor deviations, e.g. when the progress of the Case depends on the issuance of an anticipated Legislative Decree, or on how quickly the Engineer will prepare the designs etc].
Β. Calculation of the approximate Total Cost
[If this concerns a Standard Deed, whose cost depends exclusively on the number of sheets of the Notarial Deed (+/- other minor expenses), the Calculation of the cost will vary slightly, if it concerns a Proportional Deed, the cost of which depends on the Value of the Financial Object {Property / Shares, etc} (other than the number of sheets of the Contract), the calculation is based on the calculated Value thereof, any due Tax, the approximate Calculation of the Notarial expenses, the Land Register, Cadastre expenses and any other fees/expenses].
C. List of Pending Issues– Comprehensive, Detailed Instructions – Filled in Applications
for the collection and issuance of the required supporting documents and Certificates. In cases where the customer is not in position to go to the competent Services himself (due to illness, insecurity, distance e.g. a foreign resident) for the issuance of the required Certificates, I undertake (either personally or via a colleague) the issuance of the relevant documents.
D. Instructions to Engineers
[when this is deemed necessary by the Case or requested by the appointed Engineer]
Ε. Comprehensive Service via a Network
In the service sector and particularly the legal/financial field – the trust that the client feels in the professional who provides the respective services is undoubtedly of major importance. As a consequence, I generally encourage my clients to assign aspects of services related to contracts to professionals of their absolute trust. In the event, however, that the client does not maintain a steady collaboration with the respective professional (Lawyer, Engineer, Tax Expert, Interpreter, etc), or may prefer the confidentiality that a professional - stranger to his general affairs- can provide, I am able to provide, through a stable, though flexible network of highly qualified partners, Comprehensive services of guaranteed high service level.
F. Prompt Signing-Tanscription of the Contracts-Handing of the Completed File to the Client My aim remains the completion of Cases as soon as possible and the prompt client service. In the event that the contracting party is not in position to attend my office for signing, I visit the contracting party’s residence or any other location that my Territorial Competence permits. Even when the Contracts concern properties outside of the Attica region, the procedure is conducted by me in co-operation with the Regional Land Registry/ Cadastre Supervisors’ offices/ Tax Offices/Municipality-Town Planning Clerks, etc, in most cases the procedure PRIOR to Signing the Contract (collection of Certificates, Submission of Tax Returns, etc) as well as AFTER the Signing of the Contract (Transcription, Submission of Ownership Declarations to the Cadastre Offices etc) by Courier, conventional Post, and telephone communication in a prompt and trouble free manner for the client.
G. Elegant Service
Since, apart from the self-evident emphasis placed on the essence of the provided services, it is of crucial importance to me that each client feels that he is being treated with respect and compassion, that he feels important and that he is being provided with services of a high standard, with services of – if I may use the respective of "private banking" term- "private notarying". Therefore, as a natural consequence, I give great importance to the hospitality afforded to my clients (and partners) in my office and as a natural extension of this hospitality, I place much emphasis on the elegant presentation of the contracts, of the Files finally delivered to clients and of the Special Cases in which the files are placed for safekeeping.
The high level of the services provided and primarily the in-depth handling of each case and the personal contact with each client consolidates a geometrically growing number of satisfied and -most importantly for me- legally and financially secure clients.