Crobeco

A system aimed at facilitating property conveyancing across the European Union (EU) has been successfully developed by the CROBECO (Cross Border e-Conveyancing) project to:

On 15th May 2014, the European Land Registry Association (ELRA) organized a conference on Cross-Border Electronic Conveyancing. The conference was part of a project, known as CROBECO, aiming to enforce the recovery of foreign real estate investment in southern European countries.

In the field of digitization, Netherlands should be the top in Europe, these were the words of Dutch Minister of Security and Justice Mr. Opstelten at the European e-Justice Congress in the Hague on 27th of March 2014. Chairman Pieter Cloo, Secretary General of this Ministry asked all participants to join him on this road to the top.

On 24th Octobre, at the conference on e- Justice challenges in Vilnius, Lithuania announced that they will start participating in the Crobeco project.

On 8th July English Notary Mr Andrew Johnston submitted the first English CROBECO contract in Mijas 1 (Spain)

CROBECO described an alternative European conveyancing process that could contribute to a better cross border service of documents (art 81 TFEU). For property rights the law of the country of the plot (“lex rei sitae”) is fully respected (art 345 TFEU), but for contractual and non contractual obligations the law choice is used to make the law of the country of the foreign buyer applicable.

A notary who follows the CROBECO approach has to be familiar with two legal systems. His home country law on obligations and the for him foreign legislation for registration in the country where the plot of land is located.

On 22nd May 2013 Dutch notary Leo Kok successfully tested the system for electronic submission of a deed from Netherlands to Portugal. The test took place at the first CROBECO II Conference in Lisbon.