A notary public in 100AM is a public servant appointed by a state official. The general focus of his or her job is to witness the documents’ verification and administer oaths. They serve to deter fraud, appearing as an impartial witness for legal documents such as affidavits, deeds or powers of attorney. The presence of a notary public helps to screen for imposters and make sure both parties are entering into an agreement knowingly and willingly.
Similarly, legalization is the process of proper authentication or screening of documents or the notary by the high commission or the embassy or the consulate of the country in which the document is to be used is authorized to or located in Singapore. In simple terms, it is the official confirmation of the originality of the documents or we can say that document legalization is just the confirmation that the stamp, seal or the signature showing in the document is genuine and not a fraud.
100AM Notary Public Service Locations
A notary is a public official who plays a very important role in law and business. Almost all agreements that you perform in everyday life need legal backing and proof. The notary public is legally empowered to acknowledge signatures, conduct oaths and affirmations, and issue subpoenas in lawsuits.
Notary is a comparatively easy role to secure, in most cases only requiring the applicant to pass a simple test and undergo some form of background check. The applicant must be at least 18 years old and a permanent resident of the state in which he wants to be a notary. Other possible steps include taking an educational course, filling out a notary application form, paying a fee to the commissioning authority, taking an oath of office at the county clerk?s office and obtaining a notary bond. These requirements vary from state to state.
How do I differentiate notary public insurance and notary public bond? While the insurance protects a notary from financial liability in the case of an error when performing notarization duties, the notary bond only protects the public. The bond can be attained from insurance companies, but personal property can also be submitted as security.
What are notary public seals or stamps? A complete notarial procedure requires a notary's signature and seal, evidence that the notary?s signature is genuine and that the person is a notary public. The seal usually consists of the notary?s name, the state seal, the words "notary public", and the notary public commission number. A text is generally valid if the expiration date is left out by mistake.
What is the term of office for a notary and how is it renewed? A notary public holds office for four years. His commission renovation is made by mail or in person at the judgment of the appointing clerk. A notary must contact his clerk of a superior court for exact procedures.
What is a mobile notary public? A mobile notary public is basically a notary who travels to the location of the client in order to fulfill his duties. The services offered are the witnessing of sensitive documents, overseeing their signing, identifying participants and administering oaths when essential.
Where and how can I find a notary public? Notary publics can be found at a number of county offices, including the register of deeds office. They are also seen at credit union, mortgage companies, financial institutions, insurance company and courthouses. By using the Internet referral services or the yellow pages of telephone books, you can easily find a list of businesses and people who offer notary public services.
The Basics Of Notary Services
We have been notarizing documents for over 12 years and am astounded by the incredible number of incompetent notaries that are notarizing documents on a daily basis and how little the public knows about this serious problem-until they learn about it the hard way. I have personally seen hundreds of documents rejected by county clerks and consulates for leaving out required notary wording, including incorrect information, using blurry stamps and a variety of other reasons. Every day, these untrained and seemingly clueless notaries put countless legal documents and contractual arrangements at risk-from Power-of-Attorney and Loan Documents to Prenuptial Agreements, Travel Consent Forms and Wills.
Most of the notaries notarizing today have received little or no training. They may study for a few hours or days, take the notary license test and then just start stamping away with no real understanding of the principles of notarizing or the mandatory notary requirements. A high percentage of notaries don't know even the most basic notarization requirement: that a notarized document include either what is known as a notary "acknowledgement" or a "jurat," two types of notary statements that are the core of a notarization. Having just the notary's commission stamp and signature on a document, a common practice by many notaries, does not make it notarized.
And you don't have to take my word for it. A study by one state association of notaries a few years ago confirmed that "a majority of notaries" were "not performing their duties properly." The study took place in NY but it could have been done anywhere in the US with the same results.
Another mistake notaries make is related to the location where the notarization takes place. The notary section must include the notary "venue": the state and county where the notarization took place. Instead of writing in where the notarization took place, many notaries often write in the county in which they have their notary commission filed (information that is included on their notary stamps and not what is needed for the venue). Or they don't see that the notary location is completely omitted from the document and do not add it.
Notary customers are constantly caught off-guard by this negligence or incompetence and it often has major consequences. Frequently, a customer will end up waiting on a government agency line for an hour or two to get a notarized document approved and then have to start from scratch when the document is rejected because the notary had no idea what he or she was doing. The notary customer may even have a flight later that day that will need to be delayed or cancelled due to not being able to get his or her documents properly approved in time. I would bet there are worse disasters that incompetent or inexperienced notaries have caused that I am just not aware of.
Action needs to be taken to prevent these sloppy practices from continuing. It's time the Secretary of State or Lieutenant Governor in all 50 states--from NY to California--stepped in and started monitoring notaries more closely. To test their skills, test administrators should give notaries a variety of sample documents (not theoretical multiple-choice questions that have little relevance to notarizing an actual document) and should be instructed to notarize the test documents for various purposes, including international use. Then we can finally weed out the good notaries from the bad, reduce the number of legal documents that have to be re-executed, re-notarized and re-authenticated and to give the general public a break.