Notaries: anonymizing deeds and estate files before sharing an example

A notarial deed and an estate file hold some of the most sensitive papers a person ever signs: a full name, a home address, a price, and often a family's entire financial picture. Before you show one as an example, to a trainee or a software vendor, you must mask more than the names. This guide lists what to hide, with the rules for France and Germany, and a reusable checklist.

Notaries and their staff share documents constantly: a real deed for a trainee, a sample file for a software vendor, an anonymized case for a notarial journal. Each time, the same question comes up: what can leave the office, and what must stay inside the file?

What is inside a deed and an estate file?

A deed of sale names the buyer and seller, their addresses, the price, and the property's official reference: a cadastral parcel number in France, a Flurstück number in Germany. It carries the notary's stamp, a signature block, and often a loan amount if a bank is involved.

An estate file goes further. According to Notaires de France, heirs must hand over their address, profession, and identity card, while the file for the deceased includes the family booklet, marriage contract, life insurance policies, and recent tax returns. None of this is meant to leave the office as it is.

• Full names and dates of birth of the deceased, the heirs, and any beneficiary named in a will.
• The property address and its official land or cadastral reference.
• The price paid, any mortgage amount, and bank account details (IBAN, RIB).
• Family details: marriage contract, divorce judgment, number and rank of children.
• Identity document numbers and signatures, including the notary's own stamp and seal.

What does professional secrecy require, in France and Germany?

In France, Notaires de France defines professional secrecy as an absolute ban on telling a third party anything the notary learns through the job, unless a specific law allows it. The duty covers the whole office, not just the notary: clerks and assistants are bound the same way, and it does not expire when a file is closed.

Germany states a similar duty in section 18 of the Bundesnotarordnung (BNotO): the notary must stay silent about everything learned while carrying out the office. The Bundesnotarkammer, the German federal chamber of notaries, calls this confidentiality the foundation of the whole profession and of clients' trust, and says it survives after the notary retires.

Does a public land registry make the deed itself public?

Not by default. In France, the tax administration confirms that anyone can request a copy of a registered deed, even without being a party to it, but you must pay a fee and give the exact reference. The estate file itself, with the heirs' bank details and family papers, is never published.

Germany and England draw the line differently. Under section 12 of the Grundbuchordnung, inspecting the German land register needs a legitimate interest, not open curiosity. In England and Wales, the opposite: government guidance says anyone can search the title register online for seven pounds, and see the owner's name and, where available, the price paid.

That gap matters for indirect identifiers. Under the GDPR, Recital 26 says a person is identifiable once someone can single them out using reasonably available means. Imagine a deed for Jane Example's house, fully masked: no name, no signature. If the copy still shows the street, the date, and a price close to the real one, a reader who checks the local registry can often work backward to the name.

What should you mask in a deed or estate file?

For a scanned deed, ONYRI Sanitize runs this masking inside the browser: it reads the page with on-device OCR and covers names, addresses, dates, IBANs, and French or German ID numbers where the detectors recognize them. Its limit: OCR does not read handwriting or a notary's stamp, so mask those by hand with the “Draw an area” tool. A cadastral reference needs a custom rule, and a page it cannot read blocks the download until you mask it by hand and confirm, instead of leaving it unmasked.

How do you share an example safely?

1. Decide first whether you are allowed to share this file at all, and with whom.
2. Mask every item on the checklist, not only the names.
3. Round or remove the date, the price, and the exact address together.
4. Re-read the masked copy as a stranger would: can you still guess who it is?
5. Keep the original and the masking key inside the office, never in the shared copy.

A masked deed is a teaching example, not a public record. Even when a similar act could be bought from the land registry for a fee, your copy came from the client's file, and secrecy still applies to it. When a document leaves the office, whoever receives it should learn the format, not the family.

Frequently asked questions

Sources & references