Posted by Jason Brown on 10/18/10 10:58pm
Msg #357234

Acknowledgement wording

I've accepted an assignment for a company and while the acknowledgement wording looks to be correct, it appears to be missing a key field. I'd like input from other CA notaries as it's my understanding that an improper acknowledgement can be grounds for the recorder to reject it.

Below please see the wording on the provided ack:

State of________________
County or City of______________

On the __________ day of ____________, in the year ________ before me, the undersigned, personally appeared ______________ personally known to me or proved to me on the basis of satisfactory evidence to be the individual(s) whose name(s) is (are) subscribed to the within instrument and acknowledged to me that he/she/they executed in the same in his/her/their capacity(ies) and that by his/her/their signatures on the instrument the individual(s), or the person upon behalf of which the individual(s) acted, executed the instrument.
_______________________
Notary
My commission expires on______________
___________________________________________________________________________

My problem with this acknowledgement is that it leaves out....

....before me, __________________________________ ........................
Here insert name and title of officer (Notary)

So how critical is it that our name be listed? Can we get away with "the undersigned" in that space?

Thanks,
Jason

Reply by RickG/CA on 10/18/10 11:15pm
Msg #357235

Page 11 of the Handbook seems to be fairly clear on the matter:

"Any certificate of acknowledgment taken within this state shall be in the following form:"

"On __________ before me, (here insert name and title of the officer), personally
appeared..."

Your comment: "Can we get away with..."

Sure you can, but what are you getting away with?

My best practice when I see this is to use a loose certificate.

Reply by Jason Brown on 10/18/10 11:28pm
Msg #357237

Thanks Rick
I had thought so, but wanted to be 100% sure.

Jason

Reply by mobitary on 10/19/10 12:43am
Msg #357241

This acknowledgment wording form does not comply with the latest California form
not only on the undersigned part but also on the "personally known" part and is missing
the "Under penalty of perjury....." part

The following is the only form acceptable in California:

State of California
County of _____________________________)
On _________________________ before me, _________________________________________
(insert name and title of the officer)
personally appeared ______________________________________________________________,
who proved to me on the basis of satisfactory evidence to be the person(s) whose name(s) is/are
subscribed to the within instrument and acknowledged to me that he/she/they executed the same in
his/her/their authorized capacity(ies), and that by his/her/their signature(s) on the instrument the
person(s), or the entity upon behalf of which the person(s) acted, executed the instrument.
I certify under PENALTY OF PERJURY under the laws of the State of California that the foregoing
paragraph is true and correct.
WITNESS my hand and official seal.
Signature ______________________________ (Seal)

Reply by SheilaSJCA on 10/19/10 12:47am
Msg #357242

Jason- you need to re-read the acknowledgement wording you described. Yes, your name must be in there as well as the title- notary public, however it has much more wrong with it than the simple item you mentioned. There are two other key elements incorrect or missing, as well as the general wording from the get go...
You need to open your handbook and review the current acknowledgement vebage again, and again, and again, etc...

Reply by GOLDGIRL/CA on 10/19/10 1:07am
Msg #357243

I totally agree with Sheila. There are so many things wrong with this ack that a commissioned CA notary would reject it after barely making it through the first half of the second line. More troublesome is your question that you seem to think it may be OK that "we can get away" with whatever .... Go to the notary section on the SOS Web site or look at your Handbook (if you have one) and observe the one and only acceptable CA acknowlegement. CA makes it easy to know if you're using a correct ack - there's only one - so you don't need to wonder anymore what may be or may not be acceptable.

Reply by kathy/ca on 10/19/10 1:52am
Msg #357244

Totally agree with mobitary, Sheila and Goldgirl, you must

use the CA Ack in its entirety!

Reply by notary/OR on 10/19/10 11:34am
Msg #357285

My understanding of this forum is that it is for discussion and notaries to seek ideas, assistance, and advice. I'm so amazed that people ask a question on here and people feel the need to be condescending. Seemed like a legitimate question to me...how about a simple polite response girls?

Reply by kathy/ca on 10/19/10 12:38pm
Msg #357292

Lisa, I agree with you completely but in this case I think

the responses were polite and not condescending. However in many other posts I think a lot of posters on this board can be quite abrupt!

Reply by Jason Brown on 10/19/10 5:48am
Msg #357250

To clear up.

Perhaps I wasn't quite clear, yes I'd done my research page 11 of the 2010 CA notary handbook lists in picturesque format the correct CA Acknowledgement. Also, however, on the fourth paragraph of the same page (directly above the photo).

It reads: "A notary public may complete a certificate of acknowledgement in another state or jurisdiction of the United States on documents to be filed in that other state or jurisdiction, provided the form does not require the notary public to determine or certify that the signer holds a particular representative capacity or to make other determinations and certifications not allowed by California law.

The portion of this notarial certificate that threw me a curve was in the first line "before me, the undersigned, " instead of "before me (Name and Title)"

As for trying to get away with something, perhaps not the best choice of wording on my part, as I was already prepared to line out the provided acknowledgements and attach loose general purpose California acknowledgements in it's place. I was seeking a clarification if "the undersigned" was actually acceptable in other states, since California does not allow that.

The "personally known" may be acceptable in other states, again I am not sure, but since the individual would have been proving to me based on satisfactory evidence, I was still meeting the requirement for a California notary in that.

The missing section: "I certify under PENALTY OF PERJURY under the laws of the State of California that the foregoing paragraph is true and correct." - As far as I am aware only California has this in their acknowledgement wording.

Problem is rectified, however, in that there will be general purpose California acknowledgements used instead.

I do appreciate all the feedback from each of you, and thank you all for taking the time to point out the discrepancies that you found in this, I probably should have been more clear in that while notarized in California it is unlikely it will be recorded in California.

Thank you all,
Jason

Reply by GOLDGIRL/CA on 10/19/10 12:42pm
Msg #357293

Let me be the first ...

to apologize for sounding condescending (as pointed out by notary/OR), which admitedly I was. I was, however, initially stunned that a practicing CA notary would seemingly not know basic Notary 101 when it came to acks and how simple it is to recognize one. However, it occurred to me later that, yikes! he was referring to an out-of-state ack on property that wouldn't be recorded in CA. And now that's exactly the situation. That particular area is not my strong suit - when faced with an out-of-state ack, I just attach a CA ack on the premise that I don't know what the wording is for acks for other states. I also have noticed, Jason, that the "penalty of perjury" paragraph is appearing more and more and there is a blank line to fill in the name of the state....but you're probably right, I don't know any other state that requires it.

Reply by kathy/ca on 10/19/10 12:52pm
Msg #357297

Things do get lost in what a person MEANS to say and how

things are sometimes taken on chat forums. We are all in this together in that we have something in common and if someone posts something that we think is stupid maybe we can just move on. I bet everyone of us has at some time asked what others might perceive as a dumb question, I know I have.

Reply by JanetK_CA on 10/19/10 2:50pm
Msg #357323

Re: To clear up. A key omission....

I see this very differently than apparently lots of other notaries in California do, and I think it's a commonly misunderstood issue. And, imo, you left out THE most important word in your quote from the Handbook - and it's something that lots of people miss. Here's a cut and paste with my emphasis on the word left out (i.e. I've added the CAPS):

"A notary public may complete a certificate of acknowledgment REQUIRED in another state or jurisdiction of the United States on documents to be filed in that other state or jurisdiction, provided the form does not require the notary public to determine or certify that the signer holds a particular representative capacity or to make other determinations and certifications not allowed by California law."

So it's not really an issue of what might be "acceptable in other states" in a broad sense, but what is "required" by a particular state in a narrow sense. To be more specific, if a document (let's say it's the DOT/Mortgage 'cause that's what's going to get recorded) has verbiage that doesn't conform to CA notary law, the next question should be, imo, whether or not it conforms to the laws of the specific state where that doc is to be recorded. It's a very individual, state-by-state question.

If I get a package far enough in advance to be able to check, I'll do a search for acknowledgments and the name of the state. If they have a handbook, I"m likely to find something about what the requirements are for that particular state. Most of the time, the notary verbiage on the DOT/Mortgage will be compliant for that state. If that's the case - and if it doesn't include anything prohibited in CA (like capacity), I'll generally just use what's provided. (I'm with Sheila, though, in that I will also always replace anything that includes possible use of personal knowledge to identify someone.) So the ONLY two options, as I see it, are the specific language for that particular state or the specific language for my state.

As for the rest of the to-be-notarized docs in that package, I usually replace verbiage with a CA compliant ack because they may not be "filed" in that state. And, BTW, if I don't find anything in my search, I always default to my state's requirements. If I don't have time to check, the safe default is always the CA ack.

Again, this only pertains to CA. Other states may not have this restriction.

Reply by SheilaSJCA on 10/19/10 2:06pm
Msg #357311

If this was for an out of state property, I would still not use this format because it contains the personally known part. Since we can no longer state that, I would attach a loose cert.
This is just my personal opinion, I do not feel entirely comfortable in just crossing out the personally known part, because our CA acknowledgements used to read that way and now it does not.
I do not think you would be in the wrong to do so, for an out of state filed document if you wanted to cross out the personally known part. The handbook does not say anything about the notary name or title being required in an acknowledgement filed in another state, so to say the undersigned instead of Notary Name, Notary Public would be acceptable, again for out of state use only.