Posted by Lavergne Manuel on 6/19/11 7:09am
Msg #386857

One More Thing:

Yesterday, I posted about our Alabama Legislature raising our Notarization fee from .50 to $5.00, and increasing our Bond from $10,000.00 to $25,000.00. Now in Alabama there are two types of Notaries, The Single County Notaries, The State at Large Notaries. Beginnine January all Notaries will be State at large Notaries. There will no longer be a distinction between one county and state at large notaries.

So the only negative thing they did was to eliminate the requirements for Keeping a Journal. But ho[pefully we can have that reinstated again next year.

Reply by BrendaTx on 6/19/11 9:20am
Msg #386864

I'm trying to find a link for all of these changes...so far, I am only able to locate the bills.

Any suggestions?

Reply by BrendaTx on 6/19/11 11:20am
Msg #386870

Using this link, do you agree AL Notaries?

http://e-lobbyist.com/gaits/text/300963/300963.pdf

Reply by Philip Johnson on 6/19/11 11:13am
Msg #386869

Why do you need Montgomery to tell you

how to run your business?

Keep your book, let others decide to keep one or not and get on with it. Do you really want to go back to the well to get the book requirement back and take the chance that while they are at they decide the "good" changes they made aren't so good?

Reply by Lavergne Manuel on 6/19/11 1:35pm
Msg #386877

Re: Why do you need Montgomery to tell you

I will keep using a Journal because I still think a well kept Journal can be a Notaries best friend if you ever someone has to prove Who, What, When and Where something happened. Montgomery does not have to tell me what to do but there are a lot of people with commissions who think they are Notaries but really do not have any idea what they are doing.

I live in a town of only 7,000 and I have been to every Attorney's office, the Jail and every bank in town and every one of them has at least one Person with a Notary Commission and the Bank I do business with has three and for some of them it is in their job discription that they are notaries for that establishment.

I know some of them and I asked a couple what was the difference between an Acknowledgement and a Jurat and they had no idea what I was talking about. And I asked one if she ever gave an and she said no and why would you give an oath.

The only thing that probably keeps them out of trouble is that Alabama has no provisions for reporting misconduct on the part of a Notary without taking them to Civil Court and if it is a small offence, who will pay a Civil Attorney $150.00 to $250.00 + an hour plus the hassel of going to court unless they know they can get enough to justify it.

I will continue to try to raise the status of Notaries and that is why I will try to get the Journal requirements reinstated plus try for a little extra each year. I was also hoping that some of the Alabama Notaries might want to get involved.

The Notarization Fee and some of the other stuff has not been updated since the 1940's (Around 70 Years) and since we were able to do several Positive things and only one Negative this year , I feel that if we keep at it, we will continue to be able to do a little positive each year. And some day we might even have an Alabama Notary Handbook which is my ultimate goal.

Unless something important comes up, this will be the last post on this subject. I'll be back next year and let you know how much more we have accomplished.

Reply by MW/VA on 6/19/11 7:45pm
Msg #386887

In VA we are "at large", meaning we can notarize anywhere in the state. I'm glad to hear that AL adopted the same concept. Why should a notary be limited by county?