As Lebanese live under daily pressure from bills, fees, and taxes, a new file emerges from the gate of "Notaries." The accelerated recurring bill mentioned in Decree No. 2521, which is being discussed before the Finance and Budget Committee, does not seem like an ordinary administrative detail, but may open the door to a significant increase in the cost of transactions needed by citizens for selling, purchasing, agencies, contracts, and permits. The project was included on the agenda for the Finance and Budget Committee session on July 2, after having been previously discussed in committees and remained under review.
The numbers indicated are striking. The project proposes to multiply some of the fees listed in the appendix to the Notary Law 46 times and to multiply other fixed amounts indicated in Article "33" 60 times. This means, practically, that fees that were considered ordinary in daily transactions may become heavier on citizens, especially in light of the decline in purchasing power and the absence of any real correction for incomes.
The project does not stop at the multiplications. It adds a fee of one per thousand on some contracts, with 70% of it going to the judges' solidarity fund and the remainder to the cooperative fund for judicial assistants. It also adds another fee of half per thousand for the benefit of the solidarity and retirement fund for notaries, thus once again turning citizens into a source of funding for professional and judicial funds through every transaction they complete.
The background of the project is based on the fact that the fees for "Notary Writing" lost their value after the financial crisis. According to the justification, the revenues from these fees in 2019 amounted to approximately 73.876 billion Lebanese pounds, which was equivalent to about 49.25 million dollars, before it became in 2025 around 55.338 billion Lebanese pounds, or approximately 618 thousand dollars only. However, the question remains: is the correction of revenues through loading citizens with a new bill, or through a broader approach that considers the situation of both the people and the state?