Brussels, 30/01/2008 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission has published a study by independent consultants on the EU markets for legal services associated with house and land sales (conveyancing services). The study finds that consumers have greater choice and are on average paying less for conveyancing services under deregulated systems, with no loss in quality. The market for conveyancing services is worth about €17 billion per annum; efficiency savings of even a few percent following deregulation would therefore save consumers millions of euros each year. European notaries, whose tariffs make up the market examined by the Commission, do not share this opinion. Juan Bolás, the president of the European Union Council of Notaries (CNUE) believes that the Commission had ordered an investigation without an open mind and knew only too well in advance what result it hoped for. He affirmed that, “if this had involved trying to get an alternative, we could discuss the matter”, and explained that Commission was simply attempting to condemn the current system of real estate transactions with the help of a report that lacks argument and which contains inaccurate data.
The study led by ZERP (Zentrum für Europaïsche Rechtspolitik) at Bremen University observed that a high level of regulation usually included significant costs without necessarily guaranteeing better quality. Bolás, stressed that the study had not taken into account costs and litigation problems that could respect form the absence of an act from a notary. He also mentioned a study commissioned by the CNUE and carried out by Peter Murray, a lecturer in law at Harvard University in the US, which illustrated the high risk of failure in real estate transactions in countries where the market is not very regulated. In its press release, DG Competition restricted itself to calling on the US to, “formulate possible observations while encouraging, if needs be, the necessary modifications”. (CD)