Even for a digital society like Estonia, sometimes you need to meet with an actual person (i.e. a notary) to do many of the above things. In a minute, I will deal with the digital side, but first, what is a notary? Why are they essential to the Estonian legal system? How does one deal with them?
The notary system in Estonia is different from how lawyers work in Canada's common law provinces. Too often I have seen how the expectations of a Canadian-Estonian coming from Toronto collide with the rigid notary system of Estonia (or like France, where almost identical services are performed). For starters, notaries are hired and regulated by the Estonian Ministry of Justice. They cannot set their own hourly rates or fees—these are set by Estonian laws.
One can pick a notary by opening up the homepage of the Estonian Chamber of Notaries. All of Estonia's 87 notaries are listed here. Note that the English language pages are mostly in Estonian. It's my experience that very few notaries are willing to work in a language other than Estonian (i.e. they require the services of a translator).
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