I have spoken to the SOS on several occassions about the interpretation of the notary laws. Of course, since they are not attorneys they cannot give legal advice. However, what they did tell me, on this particular occassion, led me to believe that there is a lot of "gray" areas in the laws and it is all how you interprete them.
In this situation, Irene is in CA and her id is in Chicago. According to the latest NNA notary workbook it says that when taking an oath or affirmation, each credible witness must state the following... This is one of the statements being made while taking an oath or affirmation of a credible witness, "The credible witness reasonably believes the signer's circumstances make it difficult or impossible to obtain an ID card.".
I believe that this is one of those gray areas. Who is to say what the meaning of "make it difficult or impossible to obtain an ID card" is to any person who is asked this. If the credible witness believes this and that witness has a approved ID, then there would be no reason for Nat to not notarize Irene's sig.
At the time Irene needed to get her signature notarized she was in California and her ID was in Chicago. I think that it would be impossible for her to get her ID because any solution would mean the document wouldn't get signed until the next day at the earliest.
This is where common sense comes into play. Wouldn't it be common sense to say that Irene could not reasonably get her ID in order to sign the document that day? Of course she has an ID, but not with her at the time, and the location of the ID certainly was not a 30 minute drive away, but many days of driving which is not "reasonable" in order to get the document signed and Irene's signature notarized. |