I have a new signing coming up early next week. It is a cash buyer escrow signing. The buyers are foreigners. They can only provide China passport and ID. How should I go about verification and notarizing this signing?
Also, there are 2 names on the document package, but only one will be present for signing. how should I go about it?
Your help is appreciated!
No answer is possible unless you say what state you are from.
It isnāt your job to read the paperwork and figure out if both people have to sign. You only notarize for the person or people who meet all the requirements for a notarization in your state.
Will this be an in-person notarization or RON (remote online notarization)? Iāve never done RON. I donāt know if it is feasible for one person to sign and be notarized using RON and the other using paper.
What state are you in when notarizing? Does the Chinese passport and Chinese ID meet your stateās requirements for notarization? If the answer to this latter question is yes, then you can proceed.
2 signers but only 1 will be present ā in that case, you are only notarizing the person thatās present ā¦ UNLESS you are supposed to notarize the 2nd signer via RON.
As ashton said, more information is needed in order to try to help you.
If youāre unsure as to how to proceed with this signing, either contact your hiring company for guidance or give back the assignment so it can be assigned to someone who knows what theyāre doing.
Good luck and please let us know how this progresses.
Hey, check your state laws on what IDs are good and how to verify passports. In Florida, we take foreign passports if theyāre stamped by the US Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services, like it says in Fla. Stat. Section 117.05(5)(a) āA passport issued by a foreign government if the document is stamped by the United States Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Servicesā. Also, ask the company that gave you the assignment, if itās a split signing or if both people need to be there. Thatāll help you figure it out. Your questions are smart ā Iād suggest finding a veteran loan signing agent to learn from; itāll save you time and headaches down the road!
I know several states have that requirement that the passport be stamped by some federal government agency, but itās poor policy.
I had a signing where the signer was a dual citizen, US and Japan. She needed to sign some documents with her married name, and some with her maiden name. She used her US passport for the married name, and Japanese passport with her maiden name. The Japanese passport was not stamped because for the last few decades she always used her US passport to enter the US, as the law requires.
Iāve heard of other cases where an alien has been in the US long enough that they had to renew their foreign passport at the consulate of their country, and their stamp was in their expired passport. Thereās a variety of documents they could use to prove theyāre here lawfully, that are not stamped in the foreign passport. Anyway, it isnāt my job to figure out if they are here lawfully.
What?? How?? They are either one person or the other. If she took her husbandās name, then sheās known by her married name, period. If she retained her maiden name, then sheās known by that name, period. Why was there not an āa/k/aā or āf/k/aā involved here. Call me confused.
See the article in Columbia Human Rights Law Review titled āThere is no such thing as a ālegal nameāā by Austin A. Baker and J. Remy Green. Also see the famous essay āFalsehoods Programmers Believe About Namesā by Patrick McKenzie.
It isnāt clear that someone has exactly one legal name at a time (counting first, middle & last as one name). Even if that were true, some one can use more than one name at a time. Consider, for example, those states that require notaries to notify their governing agency within a certain number of days if they change their names, but allow them to keep using the old name until their commission expires. Also consider that people are allowed to use aliases and nicknames as long as they arenāt trying to deceive anyone.
I understand itās pretty common for professional women, such as teachers, to use their maiden name professionally, because they established their reputation before they married. But some use their married name socially, and possibly on real estate documents.
The IBM lawyers wanted to file a patent application using my nickname Gerry because thatās what the lead inventor knew me as, and they didnāt have time to change it. I told them my name on most of my documents, and my previous patents, was Gerard. It didnāt bother them one bit, and they went ahead and used Gerry.
I did raise this question at a seminar put on by the Vermont Secretary of State years ago. The lawyer and former deputy secretary of state acknowledged that names are fuzzy.
Thank you all for your responses. Let me provide more details that I have gathered after my prior message.
BTW, I am in San Fran Bay Area, Northern Cali.
I have also taken the screenshot of the instruction below.
Thank you everyone!
Shun, this is basic notary public stuff ā please, please seek basic notary public training before you go any further. I see you are in California according to SigningAgent .com, so please choose one of your stateās approved notary public training providers: https://notaryeducation.sos.ca.gov/
If your signers are not U.S. citizens, of course they must provide government issued ID from whichever country they reside, in this case, CHINA, as you tell us. So it only makes sense your signer will have with them a Chinese passport and their other ID from China.
A friendly word of caution: Please do not refer to signers as āforeignersā as it can be misinterpreted as being judgmental or prejudicial. Your signers are simply Chinese citizens. Perfectly OK.
As far as how to correctly identify signers, PLEASE RE-READ YOUR STATE NOTARY PUBLIC HANDBOOK: https://notary.cdn.sos.ca.gov/forms/notary-handbook-current.pdf pages 9-10, IDENTIFICATION, tells you precisely how California notaries must identify their signers:
Very helpful info. Thank you, Carmen!
Would you like some good free training? If so, I have a 140-page pdf Send me your e-mail.
That will be wonderful! Thanks!
P.S. Hopefully, all of my questions are covered in your pdf!
The sentence before the one that Carmen Lane quoted states
There is reasonable reliance on any one of the following forms of identification, provided that it also contains a photograph, description of the person, signature of the person, and an identifying number:
Iāve never seen a Chinese passport. None of the passports I have seen had a physical description of the person. A physical description would be items such as height, weight, eye color, hair color, or that sort of thing. This flaw in the California law has been discussed in this forum and on another internet forum.
Ashton, you are absolutely right. I have dual citizenship and none of them do have physical description of myself. How should I go about with this signing in this case?
It seems unlikely a Chinese citizen who is visiting the US would have any ID that meets the requirements allowed by CA for a notary to accept. You could find one credible witness who knows you and the signers . Or, you could find two credible witnesses, who know the signers but who donāt know you. The credible witness or witnesses would need ID that meets the requirements in the CA manual. The details for credible witness signings are in the CA manual.
Sometimes the other parties in a real estate transaction donāt want to rely on credible witnesses. The buyers should talk to their lawyer or the other parties and make sure it will be OK.
It would be interesting to know how you got this assignment, such as being contacted by the buyers, contacted by a title company, or contacted by a signing service. That would affect who you should talk to about issues.
A totally different approach would be for the buyers to travel to a nearby state, such as Oregon, that doesnāt have this silly rule about passports. Obviously they would have to find a different notary.
I am new to this business. The only time I get offered with assignments are the ones so complicated. I rejected at least over 20 since my first day of this business. At first, looking at the signing instruction, it looks very straight forward. Until I opened the document package and called the sales agent to confirm the signing, things started getting complicated as I progress. There are many duplicate acknowledgements and entire package forms are literally blank except the dollar/numbers fields are filled.
Honestly, I didnāt expect this to be a none US citizen transaction with 1 out of 2 signers is going to be present for signing. Now, I wish I had time to find out on Friday when I first received this package so that I could have rejected this signing.
I guess I am gonna have to call NSA support tomorrow to find out. crossing my fingers.
I have done something like that before but they had a US State ID. I would ask the company how to proceed if you cant read the ID and most have a bunch of changed names. Only notorized the persons name that is front of you leave the other blank and cross out the name.
shun:
From our California Notary Handbook (2025):
ā2. There is reasonable reliance on any one of the following forms of identification, provided
that it also contains a photograph, description of the person, signature of the person, and an
identifying number:
a. A valid consular identification document issued by a consulate from the applicantās country
of citizenship, or a valid passport from the applicantās country of citizenship.ā
IMO, it appears pretty straight-forward.
I thought I was going to do the signing with Chinese Americans. Fortunately, I am able to read Chinese characters. Someone from this forum (sorry, I forgot who it was, but thank you!) led me to the Cali notary handbook, stated that it is OK with a valid Chinese passport (or any other country). Thanks!
