Notary Public’s are required to know applicable laws required within our duties as public servants regulated by our State. Obeying such laws isn’t the “unauthorized practice of law” as some notaries apparently prefer to obey their customer’s request who pay them for their services. It’s not an “unauthorized practice of law” violation to refuse to notarize a baseless request by a highly anxious customer while providing the reason.
A good example is a notary knowing the laws in California not to notarize a Last Will Of Testament without an attorney’s request due to a two witness signatures protocol of California that did not require notarizations whatsoever. In fact, California courts have been known to turn down notarized Wills ineligible for consideration in its recent history. Such knowledge of the law by a notary isn’t the “unauthorized practice of the law.”
A Notary Public as a public servant doesn’t mean we must obey what our customer requests are, but to uphold the laws related to any particular document provided they are expecting to be notarized. I let my customer know I won’t notarize a Will unless an attorney requests one.
Another good example is how a Notary Public loan signing agent knows about the requirements to only notarize the docs in mortgage packages if there’s notarial language provided in a particular document. In other words, if the borrower wants to add unauthorized notarizations simply to make them feel less anxious over possible rejection of the home loan, the notary is required to refer them to call the escrow company. Such response isn’t the “unauthorized practice of law.”
Notary Public’s aren’t meant to be mindless robots to agree to notarize whatever’s asked of them by the paying customer. It’s not the “unlawful practice of law” to do our duties as required by State laws.
