Legal notice and mandatory details for notaries' offices in Austria

Why a notary's legal notice has its own rules

The E-Commerce-Gesetz (ECG, E-Commerce Act) requires certain details from every online service provider, and a notary's website is such a service. For regulated professions, § 5 (1) no. 6 ECG adds three items: the chamber, the professional title together with the state in which it was awarded, and a reference to the professional rules and how to access them. For notaries there is a fourth that lawyers and tax advisers do not have: the notary's office is a public office conferred by the state and is under the supreme supervision of the Federal Ministry of Justice (§ 153 (1) NO). Under § 5 (1) no. 5 ECG, this supervisory authority belongs in the legal notice.

Then there is the title itself. “Öffentliche Notarin” and “Öffentlicher Notar” are protected, and even the office nameplate is regulated in § 31 (4) NO (Notariatsordnung, Notaries Act): the federal coat of arms, the name and a reference to the holder's status as a public notary. A website is not a nameplate, but it should use the same terms so that visitors and the supervisory authority can see at once who they are dealing with.

The sample legal notice line by line

The following table shows a legal notice for a sole notary's office. The order is not prescribed; it has proved useful to start with the person and official seat and to group the professional details below.

It pays to be precise with the professional title: academic degrees such as Mag. or Dr. may precede it. Under the professional guidelines (Standesrichtlinien), other additions are only allowed to a limited extent, for example a reference to working as a registered mediator (STR 2000, point 63). What else is permitted in self-presentation is explained in the article Advertising for notaries in Austria.

The six chambers of notaries with addresses

Not every federal state has its own chamber: Vienna, Lower Austria and Burgenland share one, as do Tyrol and Vorarlberg (§ 124 NO). Name the chamber in whose district your official seat lies, not the Österreichische Notariatskammer (ÖNK, Austrian Chamber of Notaries) as the umbrella organisation.

Additional details for a notary partnership

If two or more notaries run a Notar-Partnerschaft (notary partnership), the company is the service provider and media owner. It is entered in the company register as an OG or KG (general or limited partnership, §§ 22, 23 NO), and its company name follows a fixed pattern: it starts with “Öffentliche Notare” or “Öffentlicher Notar”, then the names of all notaries, and ends with “Partnerschaft” or one of the permitted additions such as “& Partner” (§ 24 NO).

What is voluntary but still makes sense

Many templates found online require you to state your professional indemnity insurance and cite the Dienstleistungsgesetz (DLG, Services Act). For notaries, that is not relevant: § 3 (1) no. 12 DLG expressly excludes the activities of notaries from its scope. So the law does not require this information. Including it anyway signals diligence, for example with the sentence “Haftpflichtversicherung bei [Versicherer], Mindestversicherungssumme nach § 30 NO: 400.000 Euro je Versicherungsfall” (liability insurance with [insurer], minimum sum insured under § 30 NO: 400,000 euros per claim).

• Substitutes and trainee notaries: people who regularly stand in for you can be named with their role in the team section. Only the service provider belongs in the legal notice.
• Amtstage (office days): do not belong in the legal notice, but should be clearly visible on the home page.
• Notary finder: a link to your entry in the ÖNK's Notariatsfinder makes it easy to check that you really have been appointed.

Disclosure under § 25 Mediengesetz

Besides the legal notice under the ECG, the Mediengesetz (Media Act) requires a disclosure. For a website that only presents the notary's office, the short version under § 25 (5) MedienG is enough: name of the media owner, business purpose and registered office. A suitable business purpose would be “Ausübung des Amtes als öffentliche Notarin” (exercising the office of public notary). Both parts can sit together on one page headed “Impressum und Offenlegung” (legal notice and disclosure).

If you regularly publish articles that go beyond describing your own work, for example on changes in inheritance law, check whether the short disclosure is still enough. You may then also need a statement on the basic direction of the medium, the so-called Blattlinie (editorial line). A brief wording such as “Information über die Tätigkeit des Notariats und notarielle Rechtsfragen” (information on the notary's work and notarial legal questions) is common.

Data protection and notarial confidentiality

The privacy policy under Art. 13 GDPR describes which data your website processes: server logs, enquiries via the contact form and, where applicable, appointment bookings. For a notary's office there is a second level. § 37 NO obliges you to keep confidential, towards the parties involved, the negotiations that took place before you. What clients send through the website should therefore be protected just as well as what they tell you across the meeting table.

Cookies, embedded services and accessibility

Since the Telekommunikationsgesetz 2021 (Telecommunications Act), § 165 (3) TKG has applied: anything stored on or read from visitors' devices requires active consent, unless it is strictly necessary for the requested service. A notary's website can usually do without a consent banner entirely if it avoids tracking, loads fonts from its own server and only embeds the directions map after a click. Visitor statistics without cookies still deliver useful figures.

Since 28 June 2025, the Barrierefreiheitsgesetz (BaFG, Accessibility Act) has applied to certain e-commerce services for consumers, such as online appointment bookings that conclude a contract. According to the explanations available so far, a purely informational site with a contact form is not expressly covered. Be careful with the microenterprise exemption: it only applies with fewer than ten employees and no more than 2 million euros in turnover or balance sheet total, and larger notaries' offices quickly reach ten or more staff once trainee notaries and employees are counted. If you offer online booking, you should therefore align the website with WCAG 2.1 AA. That makes sense anyway, because lasting powers of attorney and wills often concern older people.

Which content belongs on a firm website beyond the mandatory details is described in the article What belongs on a firm website. How to obtain a notary's post in the first place is covered in Becoming a notary in Austria.