Choosing a Better-Quality Notary Public
As a business center, one of the most popular services is offering a notary public. We call our office "The Notary Coterie," as many services go with it, like faxing, mailing, scanning and printing.
Many people are aware of a notary service as "getting my signature notarized," but few have the idea of why one needs a notary public to notarize their document.
"Its just a requirement by the organization....etc." is as close to the why of the answer. Here is an attempt to concisely give you the low down.
A notary public performs an ID check on behalf of the State for the person who appears to sign a particular document.
The State cannot be everywhere to check on everyone on every business transaction, so it assigns a commission to individuals who qualify by taking an exam of the State and become an arm of the State.
That way, a good standing citizen over 18 years of age can record on behalf of the state the signing of a particular business transaction.
So when is a notary needed? A notary is needed for mainly 2 simple and broad things. One that the signer is present at his will and is declaring the statement in his authorized capacity by signing the document.
The second is that the signer acknowledges that the document to be complete, true to the best of their knowledge, and vouch for it under an oath.
So if someone is a employee of a corporation and want to authorize a certain transaction on the company's behalf, they will bring the document to a notary and sign in their journal that it was them on that date and time who brought that certain document in, presented a valid form of a State issued ID like a driver's license or a US Passport, signed in the notary's journal and put their thumbprint next to their signature.
The signature and names on both the journal and the document should match along with the title of the document, and the ID presented. Later, like 2 years from the notary signing, if something happens and the issue is taken to court for fraud or any other inquiry, the notary's journal is presented as the line the signer signed on along with all the details that was recorded.
The notary public, if still commissioned, will present the journal line to the court via fax, or photocopy and the case goes on from there.
If nothing happens, everything just sits in the file at the notary until they giveup the commission and the notary record journals are turned in the the Secretary of the State of California.
For more information on Notary Public, contact us office LOCALE at, 805.777.8866.