I did a quitclaim deed signing and I am unsure of how it is to be signed by me. I know the client signs where its stated but it has 4 places and the way it reads I am sure the clients name goes on all 4 lines but I want to be sure.
Before me, the undersigned, a Notary Public in and for said county and state on this ___day of _____, 2022, personally appeared. ___________to me known to be the identical person ______________who executed the within and foregoing instrument and acknowledged to me that _________________executed the same as ____________free and voluntary act and deed for the user and purposes therin set forth.
Given under my hand and seal the day and year last above written.
Notary Public
So my question is does the clients name go in all the above except of course me being the notary?
I’ve had situations where I wasn’t sure so I called the NNA hotline and they were able to give me perfect instructions. I also called the title company right after and let them know how I was filling out the form. It works well every time. NNA is an excellent resource for all kinds of questions and they are state specific with their advice.
Your BEST bet is always to check with your Hiring Party to gather the specifics about any questions regarding their documents.
Also, it’s definitely in your best interest to request their specific instructions in writing.
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If you’d like to know the reality about the NNA, there are myriad threads on the Notary Café forum that elucidates all the difficulties that members encounter . . .
Here are a few threads for your reference:
====== If you’re looking for professional, reliable, reasonably-priced training, see this thread:
Agree with checking with hiring party; disagree with turning to hotline for help.
This mess at the end of the QC Deed isn’t even compliant with your state-provided acknowledgement. If in doubt I’d have attached a separate state-compliant ack and provided that. However…for your reference, absent a separate ack, to answer your question:
“personally appeared. name(s) of signer(s) to me known to be the identical person**(s)** who executed the within and foregoing instrument and acknowledged to me that they executed the same as their free and voluntary act and deed for the uses and purposes therein set forth.”
Congratulations on indicating in your profile that you are in Oklahoma. So many notaries come here to ask questions, but don’t mention their state in the question or in their profile, which usually makes it impossible to give an answer.
In case you haven’t come across it, your state has information for notaries at Notary Filing
Looking at your law, It looks like you have a choice of either using the appropriate short form certificate that’s given in your law, or “sets forth the actions of the notarial officer and those are sufficient to meet the requirements of the designated notarial act.” It looks like the certificate you quoted in the original post lists all the required elements.
There are two things that have to be given that you don’t mention, your notary identification number and commission expiration date. Maybe they are on your seal; if not, be sure to add them.
I am a California notary and our certificates must bear prescribed language and format. If I got that mess on the quitclaim certificate, I’d advise the signers that the language does not conform to California law and I’d prepare a ‘loose-leaf’ certificate and finish the signing that way.
A notary public may complete a certifcate of acknowledgment required in another state or
jurisdiction of the United States on documents to be fled in that other state or jurisdiction,
provided the form does not require the notary public to determine or certify that the signer
holds a particular representative capacity or to make other determinations and certifcations not allowed by California law.
It seems to me it would be hard for the CA notary to decide if some other certificate is “required” in another state or jurisdiction. Who could set such a requirement? A lawyer in another state? An agency of another state? A federal government agency?
How hard does the CA notary need to work to find out if it’s really required? If it appears on a form provided by a federal agency, is that enough, or does the notary have to write a letter to the agency and ask if it’s really, truly required? What a mess.
The operative word in the CA notary manual is, , , “may” complete a certificate of acknowledgment required in another state." It does not say, “must”. Therefore, I would ignore the other state’s certificate, use the California-approved certificate and move on. As long as it is a legal and proper notarization, I believe the state in question would accept the California certificate issued in good faith and under the law.
In this same light, maybe some day the title companies will delete the “seal” wording so often found in the space where were need to place our stamp. And, get rid of superfluous wording and sadly outdated wording like “Know all men by these presents” and other such archaic phasing, and just give us documents that are in plain English. I’m fearful for all of us when the ‘woke’ crowd mandates that new pronouns be used. Imagine sorting through ‘they’ and ‘them’ in place of he/her and him/she. OMG. C-Can’t we a-all just get along?
States that have passed the Revised Uniform Law on Notarial Acts, like Vermont, avoid the whole pronoun problem.
State of Vermont
County of____________________________
This record was acknowledged before me on ____________________________________________
by ________________________________________________________
(Notary’s signature)
Notary Public—State of Vermont
My commission expires January 31, 2023
I don’t know about the blank after “identical person,” but the last two blanks appear to be for pronouns. I probably would’ve just used a loose certificate on this one.
I’m in south Florida,
I had 2 of these last week and one from South Carolina, however, the wording on the deed was from South Carolina.
The title company explicitly wrote instructions on where to sign and what not to change. (they wanted me to leave boxes blank and venue South Carolina) I simply sent them the 9 notarial acts required by Florida and information from the Florida primer indicating that boxes cannot be blank and the venue must be changed to Florida for me to send to the title company. After days of back/forth. They accepted the modifications necessary to be considered legal in the state of Florida. Follow your state laws no matter what!
