The Hengqin Notary Office began using remote video notarization May 5 to assist Chinese citizens residing in any of 94 other countries with real estate, inheritance, and major property affairs declarations that cannot otherwise be handled by their embassy or consulate.

The pilot is for Chinese citizens who have lived abroad for a long time but, due to pandemic prevention, cannot return to China in time to apply for notarized documents involving personal relationships and major property rights.

The Hengqin office is equipped with a remote video notarization system with facial recognition and that can detect living bodies, accept electronic signatures, and make recordings. The remote center, communication quality, servers, and network security have been upgraded to ensure service quality while saving time and reducing the cost of handling such notarization.

Remote Notarization Center of Hengqin Notary office [Photo courtesy WeChat account: hqnotary]

Eligible for overseas remote video notarization are: declarations, entrustments (including real estate, equity, and inheritance), marital status, nationality, name, birth, death, kinship, non-criminal record, experience, education, certificates (licenses), as well as signatures, seals, and text conformity of documents.

Qualified are Chinese mainland residents with the nationality of the People's Republic of China who have stayed 180 consecutive days in countries where the pilot Chinese embassies and consulates are located, or who have permanent or long-term residence identity certificates or long-term visas for work and study.

Issues to be notarized are those that cannot be handled by the overseas Chinese diplomatic missions, while the notarization certificates should in principle be used in the Chinese mainland (except Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan).

The Chinese citizen abroad is to voluntarily choose overseas remote video notarization at the designated Chinese embassy or consulate abroad, for instance the Chinese Consulate General in New York. They must get an appointment and appear in person being aware that epidemic prevention and control will be strictly implemented during the video notarization.

Ninety-four notary institutions countrywide are carrying out the pilot with 31 overseas Chinese embassies and 34 consulates in Asia, Europe, Oceania, Africa, and the Americas, states the General Office of the Ministry of Justice.

The pilot scheme was initiated in 2020 by the ministries of Justice and Foreign Affairs. The Hengqin Notary Office is one of five pilots in Guangdong Province, the others being the Nanfang and Nansha notary offices in Guangzhou, Qianhai in Shenzhen, and Wuyi in Jiangmen.