This may be a difference in practice, but I want to have a consistent practice, in case anything I’ve notarised ever gets challenged. I want to be able to say: “My practice is as follows …,” and then follow up with “even if I don’t remember this particular notarising, I can testify that this is my practice and I would have followed it here.” I don’t want to have exceptions.
What about notarised copies? Do you have those? When I do a notarised copy (eg of a will), I am attesting that the notarised copy is a true copy of the original.
I have zero concerns speculating that the West Virginia and California handbooks say different things, although my time as a notary is in the past and I don’t recall what the California handbook said specifically. In my time, there was no video or fax witnessing.
Personally, I don’t really see the point of notarizing a document if the notary doesn’t witness the signature. “Yes, your honor. I verified his identity, but I have no idea if he was the person who actually signed it. He told me was, though. Good enough?”
I’m with Northern Piper. It’s important to have a consistent custom and practice.
In every instance of notarizing or receiving a notarization, I’ve never encountered a notary who didn’t personally witness the actual signing of a document. Not once.
Some places don’t have those - my state, for example. I certify copies in my government job. I sign a statement that it’s a true, accurate and complete copy of the original.For some purposes, I must also state that I am the custodian of records. And the notary notarizes only my signature - I attested to the truth accuracy etc of the document.
Now I understand why some people make such a big deal about notarized documents* - in some places and situations , it might mean more than than verifying that someone signed a document.
Nothing wrong with notarization, but if someone is making a statement saying for example that her son lives with her, the notarization in my state doesn’t make it any more reliable than the same statement by the same person without the involvement of a notary.
I think the issue is that a lot of people, even sophisticated parties, will have a pile of documents and even though it says to wait and sign in front of a notary, they sign all of them and bring them in.
Further, to Northern Piper’s point, I can say that my practice is to either witness the signature or get verification that it was the individual’s signature, that would have as much validity as just the former, no?
And if Dave Smith wants to say that is not his signature with my notarial jurat underneath then he has to overcome my testimony that he told me that it was his signature. He has adopted that signing by his act.
As far as a “notarized copy” I must admit ignorance and say that I have never heard of such a thing. I don’t argue that there may be such a thing, but I have only notarized signatures, not the authenticity of a copy. Unless I am a custodian of that document, how could I assert it is authentic?
In the rare times I do a will, everyone signs all of the copies we want with fresh ink.
Ah. So probably not actually a statement that coronavirus would have no impact in any way in the indefinite future, but just a statement that the signer doesn’t at the time of signing know of anything that would definitely have an impact in the immediate future.
Not the equivalent of “the car will never have anything wrong with it that might contribute to an accident”; more the equivalent of “I don’t right now know of anything significant wrong with the car.”
Wouldn’t this be a matter of state law, and therefore vary state to state?
I’ve taken documents to a notary AFTER I’ve signed them.
Usually the documents were releases I needed to sign in order to get my final payment on a construction project.
I usually just ignored the notary instructions, signed them and sent them back. Sometimes they accepted them without being notorized. Sometimes they sent it back and told me to get them notorized.
Sometimes the notary would ask me why it was already signed and I told him. Once the guy laughed at my story of returning them unnotorized to see if they would be accepted and he said “That’s what everyone does” Then I just swore to him that it was my signature and added his stamp.
In the common law provinces in Canada, notarised true copies are copies of an original, which the Notary must review to ensure that the copy is in fact a true copy. If the notary is satisfied that the copy is a true copy, then the notary attaches a notarial certificate of authenticity, with seal. The notary doesn’t have to be the custodian of the original, but must have both the origina and the copy to compare.
Normally, the notary just has a photocopy made in their own office and then notarises it, giving the original back to the individual.
The most common use for a notarised copy that I’m personally familiar with is a will. If you’re the executor and you have to do the round of the deceased’s bank, the post office, the power company, and so on, to get them to change all the contact information to you as executor, you normally have to show them the will, appointing you as executor. But who wants to carry around the original of a will, and take the chance that it might get lost or damaged? So you get a notarised true copy from the lawyer who’s handling the estate, and you take that copy to all the places where you need to change the deceased’s infor to you as executor.
Notarised true copies are also needed for some corporate transactions, some international matters relating to citizenship/visa/marital status, and so on, although I don’t have any personal experience of that.
Here’s a link to a notary office in Toronto, outlining the concept:
That’s interesting. In the United States, you don’t take the will around, in most states (that I am aware of) you file the will with the probate court and then the court issues what are known as letters testamentary or a letter of testamentary (the name varies by state) authorizing you to act as executor which you then show to the bank, power company, etc.
I don’t think the typical power company would want to pay a lawyer $300 an hour to read through the wills of every customer who has died to verify the proper person to act as executor. And there’s the problem of what happens if there are multiple wills naming different persons as executors. Does the power company have to determine which is the enforceable will? Or if the will names multiple possible executors: “I appoint John Doe to be the executor, but if he is unwilling or unable to execute the duties, I appoint Mary Roe”?
My new job made me do an I-9 like all jobs . But they are in Boston and I am in NC. They told me to get a notary to sign off on the form except they did not want her to actually notarize the document. So that’s what she did .
Yeah, this is how we handle it as well. The bank and the power company don’t care that the deceased left his grandson Keith the antique shotguns under the bed. All the bank cares about is that Sallie Roe is the proper “personal representative” of the estate (the term executor and executrix, although still having legal force, have been disfavored for a little while) and has legal authority to be doing stuff with decedent John Roe’s accounts.
And as you mentioned, how does the bank know that the will you produced to them to handle the decedent’s accounts has not been the subject of a court challenge or indeed has been ruled invalid?
All I can say is that in the two family estates I’ve been involved with, we got the notarised copy of the deceased’s will the day after the funeral from the lawyer handling the estate, and by the next day had changed all the contact info, just by going around personally to the bank, power corp, post office and so on. The people at the banks, power corp etc. didn’t show it to their lawyer, just made copies of the copy, and a copy of the driver’s licence of the executor, and then made the changes to the account.
Maybe your probate courts move faster than up here. I doubt that we could have got a formal letter testimonial from the court that quickly.
How early in the probate process do you get the letter testimonial? Because if you get it fairly early on, and get listed as executor, couldn’t someone subsequently bring a challenge? Would you then be required to get different letters testimonial issued to alert the bank etc. to the issue?
My father died 2 years ago. At first the lawyer could not find the original signed copy of his will so we had to sign a form saying we were OK with a copy. She eventually found the original so that was used.
Are you talking just about changing the contact info on various accounts - because I can see the notarized/certified copy of the will being good enough for that and yet not being sufficient for closing the bank account and divvying up the money or selling/transferring the house.
Although I must say when my mother-in-law passed away, it took my husband only a few days to get a letter of administration- it was a streamlined procedure because she didn’t own any real estate and her estate was less than $50K. And it probably helped that my husband was her only heir. But in none of the estates I was involved with was there even a concern about changing contact info - with my mother-in-law, there wasn’t enough time between her death and closing accounts to be worried about contact information and in the others there was still a family member living at the deceased’s residence to pay the electric bill and receive bank statements , etc.
In one of the estates, there were several beneficiaries, so we had to do full probate, to divide the assets and close the accounts. For the other, there were only two beneficiaries who were in complete agreement, so it never went to probate. The notarised copy of the will naming executors (the two beneficiaires) was enough to close bank accounts, etc.
A typical power company doesn’t care who pays the bills, as long as the bills are paid*.
In my area, some of them don’t really care about identity and authorization even if the bills aren’t paid: they won’t reconnect until the bills are paid, so it’s nothing to them if you delay the process by claiming to be executor.
*I don’t think any here have a cash desk anymore, and that’s partly because they don’t want to worry about who is paying them.
In Aus, Notaries are used for international shipping documentation when required: they have to read and understand that before notarizing that it is complete and valid. Less often, for odd international things that require “notarization”, and assume some kind of “Notary” exists, but don’t require a specific kind of Notary (American, French, whatever). More commonly, if you see “Notaii”, it means an Italian-speaking lawyer (avvocoti): notaries are needed more often in Italy.
The executor has to pay the bills, yes. But the executor may well also be asking the power company to close the account, thereby shutting off power to someone who no longer needs it. I would hope that the power company’s not going to close accounts without some evidence that the person asking this is authorized to do so.