Under old law, a Colorado notary had to be a state resident.
With new RULONA law, effective July 1, 2018, a notary must live OR work in Colorado. We have seven neighboring states: Arizona, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah, and Wyoming. So, notaries can live in seven states outside of Colorado, but drive to work in Colorado to qualify as a Colorado notary.
Some of our neighboring states have reciprocal notary laws, some do not.
We have a big state with 64 counties. Nearly all of our border counties are sparsely populated rural areas and small towns with little notary business. The only exception in our top ten cities is Fort Collins in Larimer County, a 45-minute commute to Cheyenne, Wyoming. But, a Cheyenne resident would have higher commuting expenses and longer travel time than a local Fort Collins notary, so I do not see an outside competition problem.
The increasing use of online interstate remote notarization by two-way video is a bigger threat by outside competition. Online remote notarization was proposed and defeated in Colorado in 2018 due to hacking and privacy concerns. |
