Spain's youngest notary passes exams at 23, sparking debate over 500-topic system

A notary at 23: 500 topics for a lifetime post

Passing civil service exams at 23 is celebrated in Spain with the same enthusiasm as an Olympic medal. Julia Cejudo, from Carmona (Seville), is the country's youngest notary and set the headline herself: she gave up weekend getaways and travel. The mayor, Juan Ávila, spoke of pride for her family, friends, and town, calling her an example of effort and perseverance. That is the script.

The problem arises when asked what the job actually does. Here, consensus breaks. What is a personal success on the front page becomes an economic discussion about professional bodies existing in few neighboring countries, the selection system, and who funds the structure.

What does a notary do, and why is their utility questioned?

A notary office is a private business with regulated fees and a delegated public function: it certifies sales, inheritances, mortgages, and powers of attorney. Some argue the process is technically dispensable because transactions could be recorded on a blockchain without a public notary. The most repeated criticism describes the profession as nineteenth-century and redundant in a digitalized economy.

On the other side, the classic argument weighs heavy: no electronic register currently offers the legal guarantee required for a sale or inheritance distribution, and comparing countries without mandatory notaries is misleading, as paperwork there is absorbed by lawyers and insurers. The discussion rarely ends in figures. It ends with some seeing a service and others a toll.

The notary exams: 500 topics and rote memory

The syllabus covers around 500 topics. This is the figure that orders the entire debate on merit. One current reduces it to memory and literal recitation, pointing out that legal exams concentrate a specific profile: people who have never worked and spend years at home studying.

The rebuttal does not deny the data but changes the framework. The day you pass the exam, the need for memorization ends, summarizes an analyst, noting that memory is a trainable muscle and that what is truly tested is the ability to concentrate, work, and connect concepts. General intelligence, he says, also counts.

The most uncomfortable analysis does not attack the candidate but the system that selects her. If the filter primarily rewards endurance, the consequence is that effort is directed toward passing rather than producing, and hours spent researching or creating go into reciting. This is the criticism that reappears whenever such a success is published.

Carmona ‘from above’: the narrative of merit and origin

The conversation holds that the young woman's origin is not humble. It points out that she lives in Carmona's residential area, with palaces and luxury housing, in an enabling environment with access to private academies, and emphasizes that someone of modest origin finds it much harder to enter these circuits. The data is unconfirmed by any other source.

The counter-argument is equally simple: living well does not pass exams for you. No family position answers for another before a tribunal, and reducing a years-long exam to a postal address is a comfortable way to detract from someone's merit. Both things can be true at once.

What does it cost the taxpayer? IBI, trash, and opulence

The underlying thread is fiscal. It is argued that municipalities charge the trash fee based on property value, not waste generated, and that someone living in 300 m² does not consume more municipal services than someone living in 45. The example given is a municipal concert ticket costing 100 euros charged on a neighbor's IBI who never attends.

From the other side, it is defended that those who pay more for the apartment pay more, as it is a reasonable distribution of burdens, not a punishment for wealth. It is added that these burdens have not prevented housing price crashes: between 2007 and 2015, in Madrid, prices fell with the IBI in force. The detail of how the municipal bill is distributed, item by item, is what generates the most discussion.

From the radar to Silicon Valley: how the conversation shifted

As usual, the focus moved. From notaries, the discussion jumped to radar guns: it is recalled that Spain has fewer radars per kilometer than Italy, Germany, and the UK, while surpassing these three countries in motorway and highway kilometers. From there to model comparison: Silicon Valley produces Tesla, NVIDIA, and Amazon; here, national pride is a civil service academy and its successful candidates.

Along the way, the most repeated closing comment slipped in, almost a literary genre: the protagonist will have to choose a partner, it is said, from candidates of her new height. It is the type of comment that reveals more about the commentator than the character.

If the post is considered a lifetime privilege and the exam is measured in memorized topics, what is exactly being rewarded: talent, endurance, or the ability to stay at home while someone else pays the bill?