Cabinet acknowledges problems with notary services on Bonaire and works on solutions
THE HAGUE – The cabinet acknowledges that access to notary services on Bonaire is under pressure. In response to parliamentary questions prompted by reporting from Bonaire.nu, the State Secretary of Justice and Security confirms that the described experiences "have the cabinet’s attention" and that work is underway to improve notarial services.
According to the State Secretary, access to justice, including notary services, is of great importance. He emphasizes that notaries have a duty to serve and may not, in principle, make distinctions between clients or the types of cases they handle. A notary may only refuse if there is a valid legal reason for doing so.
The cabinet does acknowledge that the mandatory service obligation can also lead to growing waiting times. It is noted that this is not an issue exclusive to Bonaire, but also occurs in the European Netherlands.
No complaints registered
Notably, according to information from the Joint Court of Justice, not a single official complaint was filed against notaries on Bonaire in 2025.
However, this does not automatically mean that there is no dissatisfaction. The website explaining how residents can file a complaint was only recently actively brought to their attention. It is also unclear to what extent residents have used this complaints procedure in 2026.
In addition, several residents previously told Bonaire.nu that they are reluctant to file an official complaint. Because complaints cannot be handled anonymously, they fear it may affect future service. Given the limited number of notary offices on Bonaire, they worry they will find it even harder to receive help afterwards.
Website brought to attention following reporting
The cabinet states that the procedure for filing complaints is laid down in the Notaries Act BES and is also described on the website of the Supervisory Board for Notaries. Following Bonaire.nu‘s reporting on the lack of clarity surrounding the complaints procedure, the Joint Court of Justice also actively shared this information with the press.
Causes identified
According to the cabinet, the Royal Dutch Association of Civil-law Notaries (KNB) conducted research in 2024, commissioned by the ministry, into the bottlenecks within the notarial sector on Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba.
The findings show that long waiting times and high workloads are mainly caused by difficult access to data from, among others, the Land Registry, the Chamber of Commerce and the population register. It also proves difficult to temporarily deploy notarial staff from the European Netherlands or exchange staff between the islands.
Digital registers and additional staff
To address the problems, the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations is working on further digitising government registers, enabling notaries to access required data more quickly. In addition, the Ministry of Justice and Security is investigating whether the rules for deploying notarial staff can be relaxed.
