Effective January 2015 there will once again be structural legal notarial services on Saba and St. Eustatius. The services became irregular following the retirement of Notary Steeman, who serviced both islands for more than 25 years, almost 2 years ago. The Ministry of Safety and Justice recently reached an agreement with three St. Maarten based notary firms to be able to provide the islands with regular service. Notary Marlene Mingo has agreed to service Saba, while Notary Meredith Boekhoudt will provide services to St. Eustatius. A third Notary, Faride Tjon-Ajong will provide back-up service for both islands in the event either Mingo or Boekhoudt are unable to do so.
Starting January 9th 2015 both notaries will commence servicing Saba and St. Eustatius on alternate Fridays two times per month. The schedule for the first three months will be advertised in the local press and will also be distributed island wide. Customers are able to make appointments by calling the firm in advance. Once the notary is on the island they will meet with clients at the RCN building, where Kingdom Representative, Mr. Gilbert Isabella, has made his office available for this purpose. The RCN front office will not make appointments; rather the client is required to do so themselves.
Notary Meredith Boekhoudt obtained her Master’s degree in law with specialization in Notarial Law from the University of Leiden in the Netherlands in 1996. She started as a candidate-notary in the Netherlands, where she worked for 5 years. Afterwards she worked for 4 years as a candidate-notary on St. Maarten and was appointed Civil Law Notary effective August 2006. “I have had the possibility to vacation on Statia once, and myself and my colleague, candidate-notary, Ms. Luz-Marie Tuitt, have visited Statia for work a total of five times in the last year’.
In 1999 Notary Marlene Mingo, majored in Fiscal Law at the Catholic University in Tilburg and in 2006 returned to the Netherlands to specialize in Notarial Law at the University of Nijmegen. In 2013 she was officially nominated as a Civil Law Notary on St. Maarten. “I am very proud to be the first local woman Civil Notary on St. Maarten. I have been coming to Saba for the past year and find this island to be truly the Unspoiled Queen. I will do my utmost to provide the best possible service to the people of Saba”.
According to Liaison for the Ministry of Safety and Justice, Mr. Leo Tigges, “This arrangement will make it once again possible of Saba and St. Eustatius to have civil law notaries visit them on a structural basis for consultations in preparation for the signing of deeds on St. Maarten. With the Ministry of Justice on St. Maarten an agreement was reached that the National Ordinance regarding the notarial profession will be changed and which will clarify that the notaries of St. Maarten are also competent to draw up deeds on Saba and Statia
The scope of the work of the Civil Law Notaries will include real estate, family law and corporate law. In detail this involves the preparation and execution of deeds of transfers in ownership, mortgages, issuance of long lease, last wills, co-habitation agreements, loan agreements, marital contracts, deeds of division of properties or estates, declaration of inheritance or executorship, deeds of establishment of N.V., B.V., foundations, associations, share transfers, amendment of the articles of incorporation, mergers, dissolution of entities.
