In my decade plus of being a Notary Public, I've never come across something like this. Ultimately, I folowed my state's laws, documented in my journal, and also documented additional notes in my laptop to jog my memory if the situation ever comes up.
Separation Agreement. Long time marriage. Mom wants to sign, dad doesn't.
Met with elderly mom. Dad was a no-show. Validated identity, logged into journal, mom signed. Started talking about the document she was signing (separation agreement). She was hard of hearing so we both (me and adult son), had to yell to her a couple times. She affirmed that she wanted to sign (said she wanted to do it for a long time). Started to find the sig page for her to sign when daughter walked in recording with her camera (I got the impression daughtetr didn't want this to happen). Asked me what the document was that was being signed, and pushed for info directly from me. I told her that she had to have that talk with her family. She kept recording, son indicated that she did not have my permission to record me, and I told him it didn’t matter to me. Since she was recording, we went through the process again to get it documented on her video. I again asked mom if she knew what she was signing, both son and I had to speak up so she could hear us. She affirmatively said yes, and wanted to move forward. I asked her to please look directly into daughters camera and state so. She didn’t know what I was talking about since daughter was behind her the whole time. Daughter walked around to face her, and I again asked that she state her wishes into daughters camera – she did. Mom was hard of hearing and had to catch up to what was happening in the moment, but based on my reasonable expectations, knew what she was signing, and wanted to sign it with no influence from outside parties. |
