Why has the number of notary weddings in Malaga shot up?

Susana Zamora

Malaga

Tuesday, 12 November 2024, 17:46

It can take more than a year in a church, several months at a registry office and one or two weeks if it is done before a notary. This is the average waiting time for couples who wish to get married in Malaga. Therefore, the speed in the processing of marriage proceedings and the celebration of the wedding practically within days - once the notary checks that all the documentation is correct and makes sure that it is not a marriage of convenience, such as obtaining nationality, residence or the processing of a public pension - has led to an increase in the number of marriages in the notary's offices over the last decade: From 62 in 2015 (1.1% of the total) to 970 in 2023 (16.1% of the total) and with a forecast of exceeding one thousand this year, according to data provided by the Andalusian notarial council.

The Law on Voluntary Jurisdiction, which has been in force since 2015, strengthened the public authority status of notaries. It gave them new powers (many of them in family and inheritance matters), including the power to perform marriages. It was only with the entry into force of the new Civil Registry Act 20/2011 of 21 July 2011 (postponed until 30 April 2021) that notaries took over this new function. Since then, couples who want to get married can apply to the civil registry office or to the notary association for the initiation of the marriage proceedings.

The procedure starts with a simple application form, which once filled in is sent by email to the local notary's office, where a notary will be assigned to make an appointment and start the procedure.

The order in which notaries (there are 27 in Malaga) are assigned to carry out this procedure is decided by lottery in order to reinforce impartiality, so that it is not the notary who is a friend of a certain client who processes their wedding. In Spain this document is compulsory for everyone wanting to get married. The purpose is to check that the future spouses meet all the legal requirements to be able to marry, i.e. neither party is already married.

At this point, the notary interviews the couple and the two witnesses separately, asking them 25 to 30 questions and then cross-checking them to ensure that it is not a sham marriage. "After an hour and a half meeting with them it can be very easy to deliberate and resolve the case, but in other cases, we have to think twice before deciding whether or not there are impediments," explains Ramón Blesa, member of the board of the Malaga branch of the Andalusian notarial association.

The celebration of the wedding is a different matter, because even if a notary has drawn up the official record, this does not mean that he or she, or even another notary, has to be the one to marry the bride and groom. It could be a justice of the peace, the mayor or a councillor.

If the wedding takes place in a notary's office, it costs 250 euros (the civil registry is free), plus the processing of the marriage proceedings, which, depending on its complexity, could increase this figure to 400 or 600 euros.

Articles 66, 67 and 68 of the Civil Code are read out and the public marriage deed is signed by the couple, the witnesses and the notary, who gives the couple a copy of the marriage certificate, the public marriage deed and sends the documentation to the Civil Registry.

As for the profile of those who get married before a notary in Malaga, the majority are between 35 and 44 years old and, sometimes over 60 years old. "At that age I have only married four or five couples," said Blesa. "You might think otherwise, but the reality is that the couples who come to us have usually been living together for some years, with children in common and who wish to consolidate the family unit and provide legal security in the event of the death of one of the parents."

This is the case of Óscar (not his real name), who after 20 years in a relationship has decided to tie the knot with the mother of his three children aged 17, 15 and 10. "In two weeks I was going on a trip to take part in a car race and, fearing that something might happen to me, she asked me to marry her," he explained. It was a done deal. Without telling family or friends, because they didn't want to "make a big deal of it", and with two work colleagues as witnesses, she was in a tracksuit ready to go to the gym and he was dressed to continue with his working day, they went through the "simple formality", to which they don't attach much importance. "It's like taking out car insurance; we're not going to love each other any more because there's a piece of paper involved," said Óscar, who spoke to SUR just a couple of hours after the wedding.