A grand jury in New York issued a report about a wave of fraud involving forging of deeds to apparently take property from the true owners, and the difficulty the true owners have in clearing up the record.
The chief weaknesses in notarizations that the grand jury cited were (p. 13-14)
-signer did not appear before the notary
-notary signed and sealed page where the signature and name of the signer were blank
-notary was deceived by fake ID
-criminals stole a notary seal
-criminals obtained information about a notary from public records and bought a fake notary seal.
The grand jury recommends (p. 15-19)
-notary applicants be fingerprinted (it's implied the fingerprints would be used in a criminal background check)
-require notary public education (there is already a difficult exam; I'd prefer to not require education but give more transparency about what's on the exam, and tailor the exam questions to knowledge that will actually prevent fraud, rather than garbage about the details of the application process or other trivia.)
-require a notary bond (I've seen studies that show almost all the fees for these go to lining the pockets of the bonding company and very little goes to people who have harmed by notaries. Putting the protection in title insurance or homeowner's insurance would be better; that way the homeowner is protected even if the "notary's" signature and seal are faked; fake notaries don't have bonds.)
-require a notary seal
-state should provide notary with a certificate and require seal makers to get a copy of the certificate before making a seal (I think the certificates would be fairly easy to fake. It would be better for the state to keep track of the notary's mailing address, let the seal maker type the mailing address into the state's website, and confirm if it's right. Then only allow the seal to be mailed to the address of record, or if picking up in person, show id containing the address of record.)
-require a notary journal, with signer thumbprints for certain types of signings
Considering what a mess the state web pages for notaries are, I doubt there is anyone in the executive branch in New York interested in doing a good job in regulating notaries, so I don't expect this to go anywhere.
I hope they don't adopt some of the bad features of CA notary law, such as
-insulting notaries and depriving signers of notarial services because notaries are not allowed to use personal knowledge to ID signers
-depriving people who have changed their names from notarial services because the name on their ID (from a restrictive list of acceptable IDs) does not match the name on the document
-make-work journal rules
-rigid yet ambiguous certificate wording requirement that are interpreted differently by different branches of government (secretary of state vs. county recorders) |
