Posted by BobRogers_FL on 9/25/06 9:43am
Msg #148343

Knowing your State's Notary Laws

Application for a Notary Public Commission in Florida requires the applicant to read and understand Florida Statute Chapter 117.

“Each applicant must swear or affirm on the application that the information on the application is true and correct.

(3) As part of the oath, the applicant must swear that he or she has read this chapter and knows the duties, responsibilities, limitations, and powers of a notary public”.

I did a split signing over the weekend and noticed some errors on the part of the first notary to notarize the wife’s signature on the Mortgage document. This person is located in the Orlando area and has been commissioned for over three years, yet apparently has never read the Florida Statutes. Florida Statute Chapter 117.05, (3) (a) states that “rubber stamp seal must be affixed to the notarized paper document in photographically reproducible black ink”.

I can’t imagine why, but whoever created this persons stamp used a dark purplish color. Also, Florida Statute requires the printed name of the Notary Public immediately below their signature. This document did not comply (no printed name). The certificate did contain the name of the person who signature was being notarized but there was adequate room after that name to add another name if anyone was so inclined. In order to protect yourself from this happening, I suggest you add the words “and no others” after the name to prevent this from happening. This NP also signed as a witness. This would ordinarily be acceptable, but in this case it could also have been construed to mean that the witness was for both names and not just the one name that was being notarized. Florida law does not required witnesses on Mortgages and in this case it would have been better to have not witnessed at all.

I don’t know how or why the clerks of the court would accept this notarization for recording, but as has been discussed in the past, they don’t seem to know or care about enforcing these laws either.

I know I’m probably wasting my time in posting this because none of the people reading these boards would ever make those kinds of errors, but those who are making them are out there taking work away from those of us who do know what we are doing, and the people hiring them don’t seem to know or care as long as they get recorded.

Reply by SueW/Tn on 9/25/06 10:03am
Msg #148346

Amen to FIRST knowing your notary laws

Good post, appreciate your thoughts even though I am in a different state. Brenda suggested a visit to the local recorders office to see who my direct competition was. I was amazed and astonished to see their work! One notary needs to re-ink her stamp as every DOT was marked "unable to reproduce stamp". Several out of state notaries had no stamp, none within my state had a printed name for the notary and over 20% of the 200 I looked at did not have a commission date. It was an enlightening experience and I determined this is probably the reason they can get in and out in 30 minutes. If you want to see the caliber of SA you're competeing with, spend some time at the recorders office!

Reply by Ernest__CT on 9/25/06 2:17pm
Msg #148384

Know your state's Notary Laws BEFORE thinking about ...

... becoming a Notary Signing Agent!

The number of times that a supposed NSA has neglected to write / print their commission expiration date, failed to ask for two forms of identification, et cetera, boggles my mind. We have to be Notaries Public FIRST, and that includes knowing our Notary laws backward and forward.

Personally, I carry CT's Notary Manual with me at times. The other day a borrower had a simple (to me) question, but argued with me. By being able to turn quickly to Section 4.4 the borrower was convinced.

Don't be cowed by people who say "Every other Notary has done it!" or the like. Know the rules and stick to 'em.