What You Don't Know About Notaries Might Certainly Injure You

I have been notarizing files for over 12 years and am astounded by the extraordinary number of inept notaries that are notarizing documents daily and how little the general public understands about this serious problem-until they discover it the hard way. I have actually personally seen hundreds of files turned down by county clerks and consulates for leaving out required notary wording, consisting of incorrect info, utilizing blurry stamps and a variety of other reasons. Every day, these relatively unaware and untrained notaries put numerous legal files and legal arrangements at risk-from Power-of-Attorney and Loan Documents to Prenuptial Agreements, Travel Approval Wills and forms.

Most of the notaries notarizing today have gotten little or no training. They might study for a few hours or days, take the notary license test and then just start stamping away without any genuine understanding of the principles of notarizing or the obligatory notary requirements. A high portion of notaries do not know even one of the most fundamental notarization requirement: that a notarized file consist of either exactly what is known as a notary "acknowledgement" or a "jurat," two kinds of notary declarations that are the core of a notarization. Having simply the notary's commission stamp and signature on a file, a common practice by many notaries, does not make it notarized.

And you don't have to take my word for it. A study by one state association of notaries a few years back verified that "a bulk of notaries" were "not performing their tasks effectively." The study took place in NY but it could have been done anywhere in the US with the same results.

Another mistake notaries make is associated with the place where the notarization occurs. The notary area should consist of the notary "location": the state and county where the notarization happened. Instead of writing in where the notarization happened, lots of notaries typically write in the county in which they have their notary commission filed (information that is included on their notary stamps and not what is needed for the venue). Or they don't see that the notary place is totally omitted from the file and do not add it.

Often, a customer will end up waiting on a government firm line for an hour or 2 to get a notarized document approved and then have to begin from scratch when the file is declined because the notary had no concept exactly what he or she was doing. The notary client may even have a flight later on that day that will need to be delayed or cancelled due to not being able to get his or her documents effectively authorized in time.

Action needs to be taken to avoid these here sloppy practices from continuing. It's time the Secretary of State or Lieutenant Governor in all 50 states-- from NY to California-- actioned in and started monitoring notaries more carefully. To evaluate their skills, test administrators need to provide notaries a variety of sample files (not theoretical multiple-choice concerns that have little relevance to notarizing a real file) and ought to be advised to notarize the test files for various functions, including international usage. We can finally weed out the excellent notaries from the bad, reduce the number of legal files that have to be re-executed, re-authenticated and re-notarized and to give the basic public a break.


They might study for a few hours or days, take the notary license test and then just begin stamping away with no genuine understanding of the concepts of notarizing or the necessary notary requirements. A high portion of notaries do not understand even the most standard notarization requirement: that a notarized file include either exactly what is known as a notary "recognition" or a "jurat," two types of notary declarations that are the core of a notarization. Having just the notary's commission stamp and signature on a file, a common practice by numerous notaries, does not make it notarized.

Rather of composing in where the notarization took location, many notaries typically compose in the county in which they have their notary commission filed (info that is consisted of on their notary stamps and not what is required for the venue).

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