In an earlier post, someone asked for suggestions about how to get a CA birth certificate when the poster had lost all his/her ID. One of the suggestions was to use remote notarization. Leaving aside whether the remote notarization suggestion was advertising, or whether the original post was sincere, or just a set-up for the advertising, a fundamental problem with remote notarization was not mentioned.
When an agency, such as the CA Department of Public Health, requires mail-in documents, such documents obviously will be paper documents. Traditionally, it's been understood that when a notarized document is requested, an original document with a hand-written ink signature by the principal and the notary is expected. But the result of a remote notarization is an electronic file. Most agencies haven't thought to specify whether a printout of an electronic file would be accepted.
Indeed, most agencies probably haven't thought to create a policy on this point. So even if the principal calls and asks, the person who answers the phone may refuse to give any useful answer ("you'll have to ask your personal attorney about that") or the call-taker might say "that should be OK" but the person who processes the order may reject the printout. |
