Article 12 of the Saudi Notarization Law

This article places a limit on the notary's competence set by Article 11 to notarize contracts and acknowledgments.

The rule: a notary is not competent to notarize any acknowledgment or contract in which one of the parties is:

• a person lacking or with limited legal capacity.
• absent.
• the administrator of an endowment or will.

The five exceptions: the notary is competent to notarize in these cases only:

1. Accepting a gift.
2. A father's dealings in the property of his child who lacks or has limited legal capacity.
3. The seller's acknowledgment of the sale by a deceased predecessor who lacked or had limited capacity, and receipt of the price before the predecessor's death.
4. What is taken from real estate for the public benefit, unless the compensation is real estate.
5. A lease contract whose term does not require permission from the competent court.

The article does not state which body handles matters outside the notary's competence in cases other than these, nor the term that requires court permission in lease contracts; these are known from sources other than this text.

The article was amended by Royal Decree No. M/21 dated 26/1/1447 AH to its current wording.

Relation to neighboring articles: Article 11 sets out the notary's general competence and what they notarize in particular, and its paragraph (6) mentions partition of jointly owned property where there is no dispute, mentioning the share of an endowment or will, a person lacking or with limited legal capacity, and an absent person. Article 13 provides that the Kingdom's consuls abroad or those acting in their place carry out some of the notary's competences in accordance with controls issued by the Minister in coordination with the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Anyone who wants to notarize a transaction concerning a minor, an absent person or an endowment would do well to consult a lawyer specializing in personal status or real estate matters, depending on the nature of the transaction.