By THOMAS YOUNG
A notary public is a person who has received a commission from the state primarily authorizing him or her to administer oaths and to take acknowledgments of instruments.
The application fee is $40.
If approved, the applicant receives a commission good for four years. Notaries use a stamp giving the date their commission expires to show it is current. The fee for acknowledgments and affidavits is $5.
Notaries must post a $10,000 bond to reimburse people injured by a notary’s wrongful acts. The bond, the commission and the oath of office are recorded in the county courthouse.
Many lay people cannot distinguish between an acknowledgment and an affidavit.
An acknowledgment is a formal declaration before a notary by a person who has signed a document that the document is his or her act. If you signed a deed or a mortgage on your home, a notary had to put his or her signature, seal and commission expiration stamp on it.
The Recorder of Deeds cannot, by law, accept documents that are not notarized.
The acknowledgment form reads, “... before me, a notary public, the undersigned officer, personally appeared (insert name), known to me (or satisfactorily proven) to be the person whose name is subscribed to the within instrument, and acknowledged that he executed the same for the purposes therein contained.”
The two important words are “personally appeared.” The notary must have the document signer present. A handbook given to notaries by the state says, “The notary’s greatest responsibility is to be sure of the identity of the person whose signature is being notarized.”
I am amazed by the cavalier attitude some notaries take to the personal appearance requirement. I had an instance where a notary who had an office near a bank notarized a power of attorney purportedly given by a mother to her son, when the mother not only never appeared, but was in a nursing home. The son and the notary were bowling buddies. The son tried to take the mother’s money out of the bank using the power of attorney. Fortunately, a teller saw that a signature purported to be the mother’s was a forgery.
My secretary was asked to notarize a deed from a man and his wife to sell their home. We knew the man, but not the woman. When asked for her driver’s license, she said she left it in the car and asked her “husband” to go with her to retrieve it. We never saw either again. It turned out she was not the wife, but the man’s girlfriend.
Affidavits are sworn statements that something is true. The notary administers the oath and has the affiant sign a form.
Do notaries get sued for not demanding identification? You bet they do, more often than most notaries realize and for more than just the amount of their bond.
Thomas Young, a graduate of Pitt and Harvard Law School, has been a lawyer in Johnstown since 1958. He is a former professor of business law at Pitt-Johnstown. Readers may send questions to Young in care of The Tribune-Democrat. The opinions expressed in this column are general in nature and may not apply to your situation. Consult your attorney for advice on specific legal matters.
