Posted by Stamper_WI on 3/20/07 9:31am
Msg #180816

New trend?

Many members of the WI network are reporting that acknowledgements (usually on the mortage) are preprinted with the signers marital status on it. It is not always easy for the notary to verify that! Especially if the signers is single. The Tc's report the vesting on the first page but how does that affect the notary verification of ID. Its the "more" situation.

Reply by Lee/AR on 3/20/07 9:55am
Msg #180822

I'm going back 1/2 dozen or so years here, so it may have changed in WI (again). When WI went to a 'sorta' Community Property state, lawyers starting adding "as survivorship marital property" to all Deeds where a husband & wife were taking Title and also added that wording to the preprinted Acks.

Not a lawyer & have no clue why, but that's what they did.

Reply by LisaWI on 3/20/07 10:02am
Msg #180823

What would be really nice is to get a Lenders reasoning on this situaion. Honestly, do they know the role of NP? And just to say "Thats how it reads on the first page" is not a very good answer, IMO.

Reply by Stamper_WI on 3/20/07 10:23am
Msg #180826

My take is you are reliant on the acceptable ID they present to you. You can only verify that.
WI doesn't state marital staus on their driver's lic. If the person is stating they are stil single how would you verify them as an unmarried person? Don't think you can for the acknowledgement. A Jurat might be a different story because they would be swearing to this as the truth. But as notaries we cannot decide which document.
The WI SOS has stated in similar situations to attach a loose acknowledgement with what you can verify. The signer(s) identification.

Reply by cassiewi on 3/20/07 10:39am
Msg #180830

Hopefully no one gives us flack about this

I've had one person actually tell me I couldn't attach my own loose certificate. Blah! At least now we have a solid answer. Thanks for being on top of this Zana! Oh and thanks to Dick B too!

Reply by Roger_OH on 3/20/07 11:06am
Msg #180832

My take on it...

I'm notarizing the person's signature, not their marital status (which is not part of the document's signature block). I have no way of knowing whether they are married or not, and it's not my responsibility to determine that. The notary block IS my responsibility, so I cross out the marital status if it appears in the notary block and notarize the signature(s) only.

In my experience, the only time a capacity should appear in the notary block is if signing as a trustee, POA, etc, that is part of their signature for that doc.

Reply by cassiewi on 3/20/07 11:17am
Msg #180833

Re: My take on it...

I agree with you. What's been happening is when I cross that off, I get a call saying you can't do that. It won't record. Um, yes it will. I don't see why they can't understand that their ID's don't say that their married or single. But I now have a solid answer and they can call my SOS if they need to.

Reply by Dennis D Broadbooks on 3/20/07 12:31pm
Msg #180856

I Echo What Roger Says...

...about striking out the marital status in the Notary block. I also agree with what he says about a trustee being the only exception to the "capacity rule". When I'm faced with that type of situation I strongly urge the trustee(s) to make sure I can view a copy of at least the cover page or attorney's instruction page to their RLT.

Reply by dickb/wi on 3/20/07 3:59pm
Msg #180890

are you listening title co's and lenders...........

ROGER HAS IT RIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Reply by LisaWI on 3/20/07 6:09pm
Msg #180920

Re: are you listening title co's and lenders...........

Relax Dick, I am not listening to them and do not do as they say when its my commission and livelyhood that I am concerned about.
All that I am saying is there is a reason why they put it there, but why is that? And we had this discussion at the meeting. There are some states that it will not record if the "capacity" or "title" of the signer is not in the notarial block. What do they do? They cant verify all the time.

Reply by dickb/wi on 3/20/07 3:54pm
Msg #180887

wisconsin became a....

"marital property state".......if you get married and own a rental property [for instance] you can own it alone...UNTILL....you make any mortgage payments or in the absence of any mortgage do any repair work and because you had to PAY something to some body it automatically becomes "marital Property" and your spouse owns 1/2 of it......that is because all income comming in to the marriage is marital property, including the rents from [the supposed] non marital property........when the marital property law came in to effect it sort of did a way with "joint tennancy" as a form of ownership and replaced it with "survivorship marital property" altho it wouln't be illegal to have property in joint tennancy......the marital property law is sort of a "basterdized" community property law........it is very lengthy and a number of things you may or may not do trigger the law........

Reply by CJ on 3/20/07 12:05pm
Msg #180846

This is all I know:

In California, the marital status is always on the Deed of Trust. Borrowers argue with me: "But my marital status has changed". I say, "This is how your name is on the title, so if you want to change it, you have to talk to your loan people about this. (I know they need to Grant Deed it to themselves with the new status, but that is giving legal advice, so I don't say that). I tell them, regardless of their maritial status, they must sign the way it's typed, not their "new name". If they don't have ID for the old name, I get the two witnesses. We are only supposed to verify the identity of the person. We are forbidden as notaries to verifify "titles", which I think martical status falls under. So we have our little discusion, and then we sign. I don't mess with the status.

Reply by LisaWI on 3/20/07 12:21pm
Msg #180851

How the person is listed on the front page of the mortgage is not my concern, when they sign their name on the signature block, that is how I as a notary am to identify them. Its when they(lender or title) preprint the acknowledgement with these titles of married, unmarried and ect that Im concerned about and then you change it to reflect how you "properly" ID'd them, to only get yelled at for changing their document.
There is a missing link here somewhere.

Reply by Stamper_WI on 3/20/07 1:34pm
Msg #180869

Write acknowledgement attached" and attach one.

Reply by JanetK_CA on 3/20/07 7:47pm
Msg #180942

I think the term you're thinking about is "capacity" that we are forbidden to notarize, which would include marital status. And you are correct that we are not allowed to include that in our notary certificates - just their name. In CA, the automatic simple solution to this situation is to cross out the marital status on our notary certificate (and initial it, of course). And yes, what is on the vesting is not our concern. Unfortunately, that doesn't help any with how to handle this situation in other states...

Reply by ReneeK_MI on 3/21/07 4:11am
Msg #180996

Simple reason this happens

Software - all the programs I've seen use (I think this is the term) "global population", where any particular piece of info is entered only once, and then 'flows' through to all docs using that piece of info - with one exception, and that's the mtg/dot. THAT doc gets it's data entered separately to allow for things like "...w/t/t/a Mary Jones".

Of COURSE you know that techies who write this software do NOT arbitrarily know zip about preparing loan docs. That's how Baby Gliches are born.

One very common 'gliche' is what is being discussed here - whatever is entered into the "vesting" field on the front of the mtg populates the notarial ack. field, automatically. The software may not provide an open field for the ack. Sometimes, I see the vesting verbiage pulled right into the signature lines as well. The loan pkg is then sent on it's way as a 'bundled' pkg.

In MI, marital status must be on the front of the mtg - that's often and quite easily WRONG, and absolutely should be brought to title's attention for correction. If marital status pulls into the ack, it's a simple fix to remove, and I contend that these things are part of our job to know about, and take care of, and not get tweaked about. Lenders became quite used to title agents making sure the mtgs were all properly worded - but when the pkg comes straight from the glich-ware to YOU, and YOU are the person who's face-to-face with the borrower, there are times when your eyes/ears and common sense are relied upon.

I've never had anyone call on any mtg issue, post-close - BUT if ever anyone DID, I would know that they simply weren't well-versed on this. I wouldn't allow it to become a point of contention. As our work culture becomes more 'job specific', (or is it 'specific job-specific'?!) people become a lot less broad in their knowledge, and that's just an 'as is'.

I've encountered this exact issue in the past, where post-close auditors worked off a sheet and that sheet said "front and back of mtg must MATCH". Take that literally - and you've got someone calling you because you removed marital status from an ack, and because THEY are not a notary and don't know better. We only know what we've learned so far. =)