Let’s say you are asked to notarize a Last Will or POA or other document
and
the first part of the notary section ends on 1 page (no room for the whole notary section on that page) and then
ends on the next page.
Does this bother you?
Do you insist that the notary section all be on 1 page?
Would you refuse to notarize?
For me I have a stamp that says “SEE CERTIFICATE ATTACHED” with a place for my initials. I would then add a loose certificate
I’ve had this show up in a handful of documents. Most of the time the only thing that appears on the second page is my certificate expiration date. I will always make certain that my signature, signing date and stamp are applied to page 1. Everything that legitimizes me is on my notary stamp anyway. If there is no room for that information on page one, I will then include a see attached note and append a loose acknowledgement or use my 2" acknowledgement stamp on page two much like the one suggested by @donaldsonnp.
cvotruba doesn’t mention the state in the original post, nor in his profile. In my state, VT, I can either use the short certificate spelled out in VT law, or a substantially longer certificate that spells out I did everything the law requires. In every case I can recall, whenever the certificate crossed a page, it did not meet the requirements of my state for some other reason.
So I would write “see VT compliant certificate” in the provided certificate. Then I would take the second page of the certificate, which usually had lots of blank space, and run it through my laser printer again, adding the wording of the appropriate VT short certificate. Then I’d complete the short certificate.
The advantage of this is the page count of the document stays the same, so any pre-calculated recording fees will still be correct. Of course, if there isn’t room to print the short certificate in the existing document, I’d have to add it as a separate sheet.
In my state (CA) the entire notarial certificate must be on one page, so I attach a loose certificate when this occurs.
While Texas provides no specific guidance, if the Notary Certificate is split between two pages I add a loose Certificate and not this in my journal.
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