 | Massachusetts Frequently Asked Questions and Answers of Notary Publics
Who is required to keep a journal?
Non-attorney notary publics are required to keep a journal. Legal staff including paralegals and secretaries who are providing notary service in the context of their employment are exempt from the journal-keeping requirement.
What kind of journal do I need to keep
The journal must be a bound book with sequentially numbered pages. A journal that has entries that are sequentially numbered will satisfy this requirement as well. The purpose of requiring a bound book is to prevent pages from being removed or altered. The book might be a special notary journal or a plain, bound book with sequentially numbered pages from a stationary store. Regardless of the kind of book you use, you must record all the information required by the Executive Order.
Massachusetts Notary Law
REVISED EXECUTIVE ORDER NO. 455 (04-04)
- A notary shall keep, maintain, protect, and provide for lawful inspection a chronological official journal of notarial acts that is a permanently bound book with numbered pages, except as otherwise provided in this section.
- A notary public shall keep no more than one active journal at the same time.
- For every notarial act except for the issuance of summons or subpoenas, or the administration of an oral oath, the notary public shall record in the journal at the time of the notarization the following:
- the date and time of the notarial act, proceeding, or transaction;
- the type of notarial act;
- the type, title, or a description of the document, transaction, or proceeding. If multiple documents are signed by the same principal in the course of a transaction or during a single date (i.e. real estate closings, mortgage discharges, state laboratory drug analysis certificates, etc.), a single journal entry shall be sufficient;
- the signature, printed name, and address of each principal and witness;
- If a principal or witness tells the notary that he or she is a battered person, the notary shall make a note in the journal that the person's address shall not to be subject to public inspection.
- description of the satisfactory evidence of identity of each person including:
- a notation of the type of identification document, the issuing agency, its serial or identification number, and its date of issuance or expiration;
- If the identification number on the document is the person's Social Security number, instead of including the number, write in the words "Social Security number" or the acronym "SSN";
or
- a notation if the notary identified the individual on the oath or affirmation of a credible witness or based on the notary's personal knowledge of the individual;
- the fee, if any, charged for the notarial act; and
- the address where the notarization was performed.
- A notary public shall not record a Social Security or credit card number in the journal.
- A notary public shall record in the journal the circumstances for not completing a notarial act.
- A journal shall be recommended as the best practice, but not required, for a notary public who is an attorney licensed to practice law in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts or employed by such attorney. This Executive Order shall not be construed in any way to impair or infringe in any way on the attorney-client privilege or the attorney work product doctrine.
- The journal may be examined without restriction by a law enforcement officer in the course of an official investigation, subpoenaed by court order, or surrendered at the direction of the Governor’s Office. Nothing in this section shall prevent a notary public from seeking appropriate judicial protective orders.
- A notary public shall safeguard the journal and all other notarial records and surrender or destroy them only by rule of law, by court order, or at the direction of the Governor’s Office.
- When not in use, the journal shall be kept in a secure area under the exclusive control of the notary public, and shall not be used by any other notary nor surrendered to an employer upon termination of employment.
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