Notarization is the process of authenticating a document by a notary public, a public officer who witnesses the signing of a document and verifies the identity of the signer. Notarization is often required for legal or financial transactions, and can help prevent fraud by providing an independent third-party verification of the authenticity of the document. There are many types of documents that are commonly notarized, including: Real estate documents: When buying or selling a property, it is common for documents such as deeds, mortgages, and titles to be notarized. This helps to ensure that t ..read more

Frequently I hear the same question being asked by new notaries and notaries who want to take their business to the next level, what is the one thing that I can do to get more customers? The answer is often overlooked, telephone etiquette. The telephone is one of the most important and commonly used tools in business. Multitudes of businesses, companies, and individuals use telephones in their work every day; however, most of us don’t think of the telephone as a tool, and as a result, inadvertently misuse it. The telephone is a link between us and the world outside our business. Unfortunately ..read more

One of the first things you may choose to do once you pass the California Bar Examination is to attend a swearing-in ceremony where large groups of attorneys take the attorney oath at the same time. Taking the oath is not just a ritual, it is required for admission to practice law in the state of California.  But due to the COVID-19 pandemic and in an effort to keep everyone safe, all swearing-in ceremonies have been cancelled. However, there are a number of officials in California who are authorized to administer the oath, including Notaries! If you passed the California B ..read more

Getting your documents Notarized isn’t always easy in the most normal of times but now with a global pandemic and rolling shelter in place orders, you might think it’s impossible. With businesses closed, offices working from home, and shortened hours at the local bank branch, obtaining notary services is a new challenge. Enter the Mobile Notary. Mobile Notaries are available in most every city today. They are a traveling Notary Public who travels to their clients upon request. Typically you call, email, or book an appointment on the notary’s website and the mobile notary shows up at your loca ..read more

It’s spring break and you are taking your children to Mexico to visit the Aztec Ruins in Mexico City. Dad is at work in his office, as usual. You and the kids wait an hour to get through customs at the airport only to be told you can’t enter Mexico. You didn’t bring the necessary documents. What should have you brought with you: • Passport for yourself. If no passport, then a current driver’s license and certified copy of your birth certificate. • Passports for your kids if they have them. If not, then state-issued identification cards or driver’s licenses. Additionally, certified copies of t ..read more

Here we cover six important reasons for NOT using Remote Online Notarization. We're living in an era driven by technological advancements. Today, people are willing to use YouTube as a babysitter and tablets as their kids' companions. Be it engaging games, interactive tools for education or workflow productivity, Technology always lends a helping hand but this gives rise to a few questions: Does technology really help us? Does technology need to disrupt everything? How deep into our personal affairs should we let technology creep? Far Less Secure than In-Person Lack of personal appearance defe ..read more

Should states legalize remote online notarization with today’s ongoing issues surrounding data preservation, enforceability, liability, evidentiary access, and reliability and in doing so, potentially threaten the integrity of a key anti-fraud mechanism in our legal system? Documents notarized traditionally have robust evidentiary value. Rather than providing similar assurances of evidentiary reliability for online notarization, this technology leaves serious issues of long-term data retention, liability, security, evidentiary reliability and accessibility, and data privacy unaddressed. Ultima ..read more

….documents. Training your brain to write the correct date when a new year begins is always a hassle. This year, however, is particularly challenging. You must be diligent because writing the 2-digit form of the year “2020” on a document could potentially leave you vulnerable to changed dates. For most people in recent years when writing out dates they typically shorten the year, such as abbreviating “December 6, 2019” as “12-6-19.” This month many regulatory agencies have pointed out that if the year 2020 is shortened to just “20” when dating a document, a nefarious individual could write in ..read more

A Notary Public is an official of integrity appointed by state government —typically by the secretary of state — to serve the public as an impartial witness in performing a variety of official fraud-deterrent acts related to the signing of important documents. These official acts are called notarizations, or notarial acts. Notaries are publicly commissioned as “ministerial” officials, meaning that they are expected to follow written rules without the exercise of significant personal discretion, as would otherwise be the case with a “judicial” official.       A Notary's duty ..read more