Posted by VT_Syrup on 7/24/12 1:18pm
Msg #427883

Model acts

I don't want to hijack the Colorado thread below, but since a desire for a model act was mentioned there, I will point out the model acts I'm aware of:

1. Revised Uniform Law on Notarial Acts by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (RULNA) available at

http://www.law.upenn.edu/bll/archives/ulc/ulona/2010final.htm

Model Notary Act of 2010 (MNA) by the National Notary Association available at

http://www.nationalnotary.org/reference_material_and_publications/model_notary_act/index.html

An idea in the Colorado thread was to require "the notary's name, commission number/exp date be stamped OR typed/printed under the signature (as done in New York), AND a mandatory raised seal." RULNA requires expiration date (if any) but doesn't require commission number, and a stamp or embossed seal is required but not both. The requirement in the MNA is essentially the same.

Some general differences between the versions are (1) the MNA is much more detailed than the RULNA, (2) the MNA was created by an organization that sold some of the goods and services described in the act, and (3) the MNA tends to have a somewhat expansive approach to notary powers, for example, allowing fact verifications.

I see a serious problem with the MNA. The structure of the section on refusing to notarize on page 33 is the notary must notarize unless there is a legal excuse not to. For electronic notarizations, the sole legal excuse to refuse is "in the case of a request to perform an electronic notarial act, the notary is not registered to notarize electronically in accordance with Chapter 16." But there are an endless number of systems of electronic notarization, and no one notary can possibly be equipped to use all the systems. So this requirement is fatally flawed.