The Notary Public

Published in Information

A vital part of legal administration for public bodies and individuals alike.

The office for the Notary Public (Javni bilježnik) on Hvar is in Stari Grad, behind Hektorović's Tvrdalj, opposite the church of Sveti Rok.

Address: Javni bilježnik, Kod Svetog Roka, 21460 Stari Grad

Telephone: 00 385 (0) 21 765 547

Client receiving hours:

Mondays and Wednesdays 08:00 - 14:00

Tuesdays and Thursdays 08:00 - 16:00

Fridays 08:00 - 12.00

Closed weekends and bank holidays

A vital cog in the wheel of Croatian Bureaucracy

The Notary Public (javni bilježnik in Croatian) plays an essential role in processing official paperwork in most countries, and nowhere more so than in Croatia. There is one Notary Public on Hvar Island, Mrs Jadranka Plenković. Her office occupies a corner of the Hektorović fortified villa (Tvrdalj) in Stari Grad. It is reassuringly well ordered and welcoming, and operates with quiet efficiency.

What does the Notary Public do?

The Notary Public ensures, as far as is humanly possible, that legal documents are properly constituted, that anyone participating in a legal transaction is officially identified, and that the documentation is held in the archive for future reference if necessary. All major financial and bureaucratic transactions in Croatia are likely to require the input of a Notary Public at some stage. For instance, a signature to a sales or rental contract or to a power of attorney has to be witnessed and notarized to make it fully legally binding. (In some cases of sales, only the seller needs to do this, but it is generally better if both parties attend together.)

A signature witnessed by anyone other than a public notary, or simple photocopies of documents are never acceptable in court or for official purposes in Croatia. The Notary Public can make notarized copies of any official document, including sales contracts, and these copies have the force of the original if they are needed for legal purposes. Once notarized, a document cannot be changed.

Any document which needs notarizing has to be an original, of course. Documents in a language other than Croatian have to be translated by an official interpreter (sudski tumač). It is increasingly difficult to find properly qualified interpreters: Hvar has none for English, so translations have to be done in Split or elsewhere. The right rubber stamp is all-important.

How is notarization done?

When you visit the Notary Public, you must have proof of your identity. For Croatians this is an identity card or passport, and usually one’s personal identity number (OIB) which is separate from those documents. Foreigners should have their passports. Photocopies are not accepted as proof of identity.

Your details are entered into a ledger, and the transaction is performed. For signature witnessing, the Notary Public watches while you make your mark, then enters your details and a verification on the back of the document or on a separate sheet of paper with a special stamp. This sheet is attached to the original document with a multicoloured twisted cord, which is knotted and bound to the back page with a sticky seal which is over-stamped as a final precaution against tampering. The Notary Public retains a copy of the notarized document.

You can ask for as many copies of your notarized document as you wish, and the copies are double stamped and bound in the same way as the original. If you are likely to need copies for official purposes, which is usually the case for a purchase contract, it is a good idea to have them done straight away, as notarized copies done at a later date are significantly more expensive.

Notarizing abroad

It is possible to have documents notarized outside Croatia. It is a process which for most countries is regulated by the Hague Convention of 1961. Documents have to be stamped with an Apostille, which is a certificate guaranteeing that the document has been verified by an accredited government official.

In the United Kingdom Apostilles used to be administered personally in an office with daunting but mobile queues near Admiralty Arch in London, but now all applications are handled in Milton Keynes - more details on:

http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/about-us/what-we-do/services-we-deliver/legal-services/Legalisation/

For information on the Apostille in the United States:

http://www.state.gov/m/a/auth/c16921.htm

Hvar for ease

Notarizing documents on Hvar has definite advantages. You attend in person, have control of your papers throughout, and receive your notarized document(s) immediately. In special circumstances such as severe ill-health or disability, a home visit can be organized.

If there are any problems, Mrs Plenković will explain clearly what you need to do to solve them. If you have to queue, you may have to wait as each process can be lengthy, but so long as you have arrived within the normal receiving hours you will be attended to, even after the official closing time.

You can pass the time admiring Petar Hektorović’s pithy Latin pleasantries engraved on the stones, or analysing how the walls have been altered over the years. Just one warning: there is no waiting room, so you sit or stand outside the office in a partly covered open space. It can be very hot in summer, or cold and wet in winter, so be prepared!

Public Notary Office, Kod Svetog Roka, 21460 Stari Grad
Telephone: 00 385 (0)21 765 547

Working hours for receiving clients:
Monday and Wednesday 8.00 - 14.00
Tuesday and Thursday 8.00 - 16.00
Friday: 8.00 - 12.00
(Closed on Bank Holidays)

 © Vivian Grisogono MA(Oxon)

You are here: Home Information The Notary Public

Eco Environment News feeds

  • About 89% of the public want their governments to do more to tackle the climate crisis – but don’t know they’re the majority

    • The Guardian is joining forces with dozens of newsrooms around the world to launch the 89% Project – and highlight the fact that the vast majority of the world’s population wants climate action. Read more

    A superpower in the fight against global heating is hiding in plain sight. It turns out that the overwhelming majority of people in the world – between 80% and 89%, according to a growing number of peer-reviewed scientific studies – want their governments to take stronger climate action.

    As co-founders of a non-profit that studies news coverage of climate change, those findings surprised even us. And they are a sharp rebuttal to the Trump administration’s efforts to attack anyone who does care about the climate crisis.

    Mark Hertsgaard and Kyle Pope are the co-founders of the global journalism collaboration Covering Climate Now

    Continue reading...

  • Two Belgian 19-year-olds have pleaded guilty to wildlife piracy – part of a growing trend of trafficking ‘less conspicuous’ creatures for sale as exotic pets

    Poaching busts are familiar territory for the officers of Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), an armed force tasked with protecting the country’s iconic creatures. But what awaited guards when they descended in early April on a guesthouse in the west of the country was both larger and smaller in scale than the smuggling operations they typically encounter. There were more than 5,000 smuggled animals, caged in their own enclosures. Each one, however, was about the size of a little fingernail: 18-25mm.

    The cargo, which two Belgian teenagers had apparently intended to ship to exotic pet markets in Europe and Asia, was ants. Their enclosures were a mixture of test tubes and syringes containing cotton wool – environments that authorities say would keep the insects alive for weeks.

    Continue reading...

  • Polestar says Dutton’s move shows ‘a complete lack of understanding of the significant cost-of-living, climate and health benefits of EVs’

    Electric vehicles would cost more under a Coalition government, after Peter Dutton confirmed he would scrap a popular tax break for EV drivers in an apparent backflip that has caused confusion and anger among clean car advocates.

    The initiative, which was introduced by the Albanese government in 2022, has meant if a person buys an EV priced under $91,387 through a novated lease program via their employer (when a lease is paid off through pre-taxed salary deductions) they do not have to pay fringe benefits tax (FBT) – even if the car is only for personal use.

    Sign up for the Afternoon Update: Election 2025 email newsletter

    Continue reading...

  • The Marches, Shropshire: In this garden we’ve had woolly aphids, rose aphids, whitefly and blackfly, now we have Californian maple aphids, who have a story of their own

    An accidental touch of a branch brings a handful of little sticky dots. Looking at the branch, the surprise is that all the lower ones are covered with a shifting pointillism of dots moving together. Under a hand lens they become autonomous animals – aphids.

    There are thousands of them, moving independently as individuals, each with a sense of purpose and moment, determined and working together. Forming clusters around scar tissue on bark wounds, walking upwards towards the canopy of opening leaves, the aphids catch the sunlight and their amber bodies shine with the viscosity of drops of honey. In the morning sun they cast shadows, an imaginary material to which old fears and prejudices stick.

    Continue reading...

  • Virtual meeting of leaders also hears UN’s António Guterres proclaim ‘no group or government’ can stop green revolution

    China will continue to push forward on the climate crisis, Xi Jinping has said while appearing to criticise the “protectionism” of Donald Trump’s tariff policies.

    The Chinese president was attending a closed-door virtual meeting with the UN secretary general, António Guterres, Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, and about a dozen other heads of state and government to discuss the climate crisis.

    Continue reading...

  • The Wildlife Trusts are in shock after acquiring 4,000 sheep in Rothbury estate deal as part of land restoration project

    Woolly maggots, nature-destroyers – sheep are criticised by many conservationists for denuding Britain’s uplands of rare plants and trees.

    So The Wildlife Trusts were shocked when they were compelled to buy 4,000 sheep as part of the biggest land restoration project in England.

    Continue reading...

  • Americans have often moved between states for opportunities. Now they’re being forced to uproot themselves to escape hostile forces under Trump

    Continue reading...

  • The UN has called the detention of Pablo López Alavez ‘arbitrary’, while human rights organisations say his sentence is part of a systematic and alarming pattern of criminalisation of Mexico’s environmental activists

    The meeting room in the prison of Villa de Etla, a town in Oaxaca, Mexico, doubles as a classroom with school desks and a small library. The walls feature motivational phrases such as “First things first”, “Live and let live” and “Little by little, you’ll go far”.

    Pablo López Alavez, a 56-year-old environmental defender, has had nearly 15 years to contemplate these sentiments – and faces 15 more, after being imprisoned for murders he says he did not commit.

    Continue reading...

  • ‘As a species, these crocs are easy to find and easy to catch. Brice Itoua is the most skilled hunter in his village. But they kill the crocs to eat – not to sell’

    The Congo dwarf crocodile is a lovely species. They’re very shy and, unfortunately, very easy to find and catch. Mostly hunted for their bushmeat, these crocs only grow up to a few feet in length and during the dry season, they often spend the daytime hiding in burrows and dens at the water’s edge. Hunters use a long, woody liana vine with a hook on the end to drag them out, before binding their snout with a shorter vine and carrying them away.

    Last summer, I shot a story about the Congo dwarf crocodile after being given access to the Lake Télé Community Reserve by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), which manages this protected area in the Republic of the Congo with the Congolese government.

    Continue reading...

  • Rock deposits provide first land-based evidence of Earth’s largest flood, when water surged through strait of Gibraltar

    The event that refilled the Mediterranean basin 5m years ago is thought to have been the largest flood in Earth’s history, with water surging through the present-day strait of Gibraltar 1,000 times faster than the Amazon River, filling the basin in just a couple of years. Now jumbled rock deposits on the top of hills in south-east Sicily provide the first land-based evidence for this flood.

    The megaflood theory emerged in 2009, when scientists discovered a massive eroded channel at the bottom of the strait of Gibraltar. Subsequent research has revealed scours on the sea floor, showing how the water forced its way through the shallow gap between Sicily and mainland Africa, to fill the eastern Mediterranean Sea.

    Continue reading...

Eco Health News feeds

Eco Nature News feeds