Notary office EJH Jansen is located in a stately building on the Oude Delft in Delft. In the marble hallway, notary Ewout Jansen (51) is just saying goodbye to a family. He presses another bottle of red wine with a ribbon on it into the father’s hand. “They have just bought a house, so we always give them a bottle to celebrate,” says Ewout. He guides us into “the drawing room”. Everything is made of oak, the parquet floor creaks, the ceilings are high.
It smells a bit like sweat in the fancy room. Secretary Patricia Boer quickly clears the home buyers’ coffee cups from the gigantic oval table. “Just leave the door open for a moment,” Ewout asks her. The bill of sale he just executed was long. “It is always an exciting moment for both buyer and seller.” We get coffee from Patricia who presents a bowl with eight filled cakes from Albert Heijn: “Baker Jaap Delft was closed.”
The telephone rings constantly from the hallway. Towards the end of the year it is extra busy at Jansen Notarissen. “By all notaries, by the way,” says Ewout. Everyone wants to have things arranged fiscally before the new year, before “the new rules” come into effect. Second homes have been sold en masse in recent months. “People have to get rid of their investment properties, it is no longer convenient,” says Ewout.
Candidate notary Veerle Ooink (27) enters. She bought Ewout and herself a healthy sandwich at the butcher shop Leo van Vliet, “a household name in Delft”. Ham, cheese, egg and a tomato-cucumber-mayonnaise mixture. “I don’t think it’s that healthy,” says Veerle. She specifically asked if there could be a little less mayonnaise this time.
The eleven employees normally have lunch at their desk or take a walk. There is often little time to eat. It is actually busy all year round. “That is really new,” says Ewout. There is a standard shortage of people in the sector. The work is becoming increasingly complex, especially in family law. “This is due to the aging population, more and more blended families and the popularity of living wills,” says Ewout.
Why is there no new growth of young notaries? Ewout points to Veerle while the saucy cubes of tomato and cucumber fall out of his sandwich. Veerle has completed her training and passed her first certificates this year. “Clients are becoming more demanding, society is becoming more complex – this is reflected in the notarial profession,” says Veerle. The work-life balance is almost non-existent. “Eight appointments in a row in one day and then there is paperwork.” According to Veerle, many young people gradually drop out.
Healthy sandwich from butcher shop Leo van Vliet, “a household name in Delft”.
Simon Lenskens
Ewout and Veerle show us the rest of the office. The paneling and doorposts are canal green. The doorknobs are gold. “I would never sit on an industrial estate,” says Ewout. “People tell very intimate things about their lives here, it is important that they can do that in a homely, warm atmosphere.”
Secretaries Patricia Boer and Monique Winkel sit in the room overlooking the garden. They are busy. Monique has just eaten a roast beef sandwich with truffle mayonnaise from home behind her desk. There are rows of bottles of red wine in cellophane on the wooden floor. “Those are our Christmas gifts, we start on them at two o’clock,” says Monique.
The radiators sound ticking through the hallway of the first floor. “Yes, the heating costs, we won’t talk about that,” says Ewout. Behind her computer, notarial employee Nicole Diefenbach (54) takes the last bite of a filet americain sandwich with egg. She got the sandwich at ‘Verkade & Jacques, the virtuous product’ – also a household name in Delft, but cheaper than Van Vliet. “How much did you pay, Veerle?” Veerle paid five euros per sandwich, Nicole only three.
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