In CA (where I was a notary once), certificates were/are a slam dunk. You have the state-specific ack and jurat. Made it very easy. However, as a CO notary, as far as I can see anything goes. And I suspect that's the case in most other states, as well. For example, a CO-correct ack needs only to contain a date, name(s) of signer(s) and the word "acknowledged" somewhere/anywhere. Badabing. You're done. The jurat is ever worse. It requires only "Subscribed and sworn" and the date. End of story. Not even the name of the signers. Yikes! Are they serious? Apparently. (Of course, venue and notary sig are also required.)
Which brings me to my point: Since most NSAs do not have ANYWHERE NEAR the legislatively required verbiage that CA does, they see all sorts of screwy, ungrammatical, incoherent, nonsensical, ridiculous wording on what lenders/TCs consider "notarial certificates." (Karla's example case in point.) CA notaries don't have to mess with that, wade through it, try to figure it out. They just stamp "CA compliant certificate attached" (or somesuch) and move on.
So point is, there really is no "attach your state's certificates," in CO at least, because there is no "state certificate." And there really is no point in using "your own certificates," because why would a notary in a state where there is no state-specific verbiage use "their certificate" over whatever gibberish is printed on the doc. What would "your own certificates" contain? The notary's idea of how an ack should read? So the notary is choosing verbiage over what's printed on the docs ... in a state where there is no required verbiage? None of this makes sense to me. I'd like to hear other notaries' views on this subject.
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