Posted by SheilaSJCA on 4/22/09 10:40am
Msg #285901

great presentation, but no notary skills to speak of

I was in a rare position today, being able to observe another notary doing "my" job. This CA notary claims to be working as a notary for 10 years.
This was a purchase transaction. When notarizing the DOT for this California property, he did not remove the capacity claimed (ie; husband and wife) from the pre-printed acknowledgement, ( we CA notaries, cannot include capacity with the signers names on our certificates). The correct fix would be to line out the extra verbage on the notary acknowledgement, or attach a loose certificate. Next he did not attach a loose cert to the limited POA, when it clearly did not have the correct CA verbage, and last, but not least, did not have the signers take an oath, or attach or stamp the correct Jurat wording, when notarizing the signature affidavits. All jurats taken in CA, must have CA wording, it does not matter where the document will go. His response? (my paraphrasing) " Even though it is a CA property, the lender may have headquarters elsewhere, where this paperwork will be housed, so I don't need to follow CA law, since it isn't really a CA recordable document- (talking about everything BUT the DOT) and besides, the lender might not accept my cross-outs on the notary acknowledgement, or accept a loose/attached certificate, because I have had that happen before with this lender" (so not true!!! I do several a month for this big bank, and have never had an issue. Then I asked about the DOT which is a recordable document...again, same answer, the county might reject it, if I cross out the capacity. Too bad... he gave a really great presantation of the loan docs, but hasn't a clue about CA notary law.

Reply by CA/Notary on 4/23/09 12:17am
Msg #286016

Did you consider giving him some training.

I've had that happen to me, but of course I couldn't keep my mouth shut. My spouse kept giving me dirty looks, hey, I want it legal.