Do expats pay different notary fees than Belgian nationals when selling property?

Expats do not pay different notary fees compared to Belgian nationals when selling property. The tariff is fixed by law and follows the price of the property, not the passport of the person signing. What does change when you live abroad is everything around the deed: a power of attorney, translations, longer document chains and a slower run up to the signing date. Those are the costs worth budgeting for.

The notary tariff is set by law, not by the parties

Belgium does not have a free market in notary fees. The scale is fixed nationally by royal decree, it is degressive, and every notary in the country applies the same one to the same transaction. You cannot negotiate it down, and a notary cannot quietly load it up because the seller has a foreign address. If two people sell identical houses in the same street, for the same price, on the same day, one Belgian and one Irish, the deed costs the same.

That also means shopping around on price is pointless. Where notaries genuinely differ is service: how fast they answer, whether they work in English, whether they are used to files for owners who are not in the country. For a sale run from abroad, that difference matters far more than a fee you cannot change anyway.

Who actually pays the notary in a Belgian sale

In a standard Belgian sale the buyer carries the deed costs. Registration duties, the notary fee on the purchase deed and the various search and filing charges all land on the buyer's side of the settlement. Sellers are often surprised by this, especially if they are used to a market where each side pays its own way.

The seller's own bill is much shorter. You pay for the documents the law makes you produce: the energy performance certificate, the soil attestation in Flanders, the electrical inspection, the urban planning information, and the syndic file if you are selling an apartment. If a Belgian mortgage is still registered on the property, you pay for the release of that mortgage, which is a notarial act with its own cost. None of these items has a resident rate and a non-resident rate.

Appointing your own notary does not double the bill

Buyer and seller can each appoint their own notary. In Belgium that does not double anything. The legal fee stays the same and the two notaries share it between them. For a seller living abroad this is close to free help, so use it. Your notary works for you: checking the compromis before you commit, chasing the certificates you cannot chase from another country, and telling you in plain terms what you are about to sign.

If you want an English speaking notary, ask early. Plenty of offices in Brussels and Antwerp handle international files daily. The deed itself will still be drawn up in Dutch, French or German, because those are the languages of the record.

Where an expat sale genuinely costs more

The extra money goes on things a resident seller never needs to think about.

A power of attorney is the big one. If you are not flying in to sign, your notary drafts a mandate that lets someone sign the deed for you. You sign that mandate in front of a notary or at a Belgian consulate where you live, and depending on the country it may need legalisation or an apostille before Belgium accepts it. That process carries its own fees and, more painfully, its own calendar. Several weeks is normal.

Translation is the second. If you do not follow the language the deed is written in, you need a sworn translation or an interpreter at the signing. Your notary can walk you through the content, but the record stays in the official language.

Then there is time. Documents a resident collects in an afternoon, such as a municipal certificate or a copy of the title, take longer to obtain when your correspondence address sits in another country. Building the file is where non-resident sales usually run late, not the signing itself.

Your tax position is a separate question from the fee

Notary fees are one thing, your tax position is another, and the second is where expat sellers actually get caught out. Whether a gain on the sale is taxable in Belgium depends on how long you owned the property, whether it counted as your own home, and what you did with it after you moved away. Renting it out after leaving can change the answer.

Your notary is also legally required to check for outstanding Belgian taxes and debts before releasing the proceeds, and can hold back part of the money until that is settled. Raise this at the start of the file rather than in the week of the deed, and have your position confirmed by your notary or a tax adviser. It is the one part of the sale where a general article, this one included, is no substitute for advice on your own file.

Get the price right before you get to the notary

Fee differences between notaries are zero. Price differences between estate agents are not. On a Belgian sale the agency commission and the sale price itself move far more money than any deed cost, and that is where a seller abroad has real leverage.

Start with a number you trust. A free valuation of your property gives you a defensible figure before anyone quotes you a commission. Then compare estate agents who actually work in your municipality and who have handled sales for owners living abroad. ImmoMakelaarVergelijker.be passes your details to a maximum of three agents, never more, so you get a real comparison without a week of phone calls. You can start the comparison here, free and without obligation.