Notaría 9 Builds Innovative Solutions in a Heavily Regulated Industry

Notaría 9 de Mexicali B.C. is a Mexicali-based notarial service under the leadership of public notary Carlos Enriquez de Rivera Castellanos. The office, one of Mexico’s leading legal notaries, provides a wide range of services including real estate transactions, will and estate planning, contract affirmations, new business incorporation, and legal document authentication. Public notaries in Mexico follow a civil law system wherein they are given further-reaching legal responsibilities than their counterparts in the U.S., U.K. or Canada, more akin to a lawyer.

This legal responsibility includes complex regulatory considerations when handling client information. Notary servicers in Mexico are required to submit client information to city clerks, in addition to retaining it for a minimum of five years. Additionally, notary offices are regularly audited by an independent commission, which cross matches stored records with those that are submitted to city clerks.

“Carlos has driven a vision for digital transformation at his business and has managed to consolidate all the necessary pieces to make operations more reliable and efficient,” said Guillermo Hernandez, managing director and founder of Soluciones Impex. “Using technology as the main enabler, Carlos has made Notaría 9 into the most advanced notary public in Mexico.”

“If I didn’t have Laserfiche I wouldn’t be in the same position right now with the benefits I’m able to give to my clients,” said Enriquez de Rivera Castellanos. “We cannot work without Laserfiche.”

Prior to Laserfiche, the office was overwhelmed with managing documentation in a mostly manual fashion. More clients led to an increase in documents as well as increased risk of lost information. The office needed a digital solution that would keep documentation in a consolidated platform that would provide the security and searchability it needed to efficiently serve clients.

Laserfiche addressed those needs, enabling the firm to keep documents for every transaction in a single platform and facilitating the easy retrieval of information. As an added bonus, the office in charge of the public registry in Baja California also uses Laserfiche, making for a seamless transfer of information between the organizations.  

“In the beginning, we focused on two main activities: one, to keep all documents for every single transaction inside Laserfiche, and two, to understand in which phase of a transaction that a customer was currently located,” Enriquez de Rivera Castellanos said.

With Laserfiche process automation, the office began to standardize processes, which provided a better understanding of how long each process takes, and where there was opportunity to optimize.

As Notaría 9 evolved, Rivera Castellanos continued to evolve the office’s use of the Laserfiche platform. One of the most forward-thinking Laserfiche solutions Notaría 9 leverages today is its Living Trust process.

In 2022, Mexico reformed the “Reforma a la Ley de Proteccion al Patrimonio Familiar,” a law that encourages families to create a living trust to protect their real estate assets. As a part of this reform, September was deemed “Living Trust Month” and the government mandated that many services related to preparing living trusts be discounted.  

“We never used to do a lot of living trusts for our clients over the course of any given year,” Enriquez de Rivera Castellanos said. “Now, everyone waits until September to take advantage of the discount, so we have a full office during this time.”

Today, Notaría 9 manages this spike in activity due to the government mandated discounts with ease, while preemptively avoiding the additional overhead each year.

“It’s also easier for the people in my office because they have all the information already completed, and they can just verify it and make the appointment,” Enriquez de Rivera Castellanos added.

The innovative Laserfiche solution has built Notaría 9’s reputation as a digital innovator in the industry, while also building trust with clients government agencies.

As a legal business, Notaría 9 must be conscious of complex regulatory requirements. Anti-Money Laundering (AML) laws require robust recordkeeping and document-sharing framework between notaries and their regulatory agency.  

Additionally, when client service is related to buying or selling property, Notaría 9 is required to process documents multiple times through Infonavit, or Mexico’s National Housing Fund Institute. Using Laserfiche’s intelligent capture and processing capabilities, the firm has set up a process that automatically routes the information to Infonavit without human intervention.

Beyond government regulators, independent auditors are another consideration for the office. When the Notaries General performs an audit, it requires that the documentation the office sends to the city clerk is identical to the documentation stored within the organization. Laserfiche assists with these regulatory needs through:

Notaría 9’s visionary Laserfiche solutions have enabled significant business growth, allowing the firm to provide an exceptional client experience, while building trust with regulatory agencies. As the firm continues to optimize operations, the Living Trust process serves as a template for other services such as New Business Incorporation, Power of Attorney, and other legal processes.