S.L. 55.6 Art. 7Public Registry.

(1) Saving the provisions of these regulations, an official Public Registry search which is not in terms of the Public Registry

(Inspection and Searches) Regulations, shall be excluded from the scope of these regulations: Provided that a notary who, in the following instances, relies on a Public Registry search, shall be considered to have acted with due diligence for the purposes of the Act and these regulations even where, in terms of the Public Registry (Inspection and Searches) Regulations the search is not considered to be official. The instances are the following:

(a) those relative to a particular town or village, and

(b) those where the different maternity of the person about whom the search is being conducted has been excluded. The notary shall inform the transferee of the limitations of such search and the provisions of sub-regulation (3) of regulation 3 shall be observed.

(2) A notary who makes an online update of an official search shall be considered to have acted with due diligence for the purposes of the Act and these regulations even where, in terms of the Public Registry (Inspection and Searches) Regulations the online update is not considered to be official:

Provided that for the time that online searches are not guaranteed by the Public Registry, an online updating shall not be carried out for any period exceeding ninety days.

(3) A notary shall ensure that the official Public Registry search be updated officially up to not more than thirty days prior to the date of publication of the notarial act, unless he chooses to update it through an online search, in which case he shall update the search up to not more than seven days prior to the date of publication of the notarial act.

(4) (a) A notary shall not be responsible beyond what transpires from the Public Registry official search.

(b) Without prejudice to the generality of the provisions of paragraph (a), a notary shall not be responsible for any error or omission in the Public Registry official search itself, whether this results from an error or omission in the official list of numbers, or an error in the contents of a note referred to in the official list of numbers, or an error or omission in the online data the notary has downloaded.

(5) Where there is a discrepancy between an official Public Registry search and a copy of a notarial act forming part of the searches, because -

(a) a note of enrolment, a note of hypothec (including privilege) or a note of reference (including one of total cancellation, reduction, assignment, postponement or subrogation) referring to such act is for any reason not included in the official list of numbers; or

(b) the contents of a note is in conflict with the contents of the corresponding notarial act, the notary shall inform the transferee and shall advise him on the course of action he could take, including the possibility of referring such transferee to take further independent legal advice.