WHAT IS NOTARIZATION?

A Notary is an official of integrity appointed by state government, by the Secretary of State, to serve the public in non-contentious matters, usually concerned with estates, deeds, powers of attorney and foreign and international business.  A notary performs a variety of official fraud-deterrent acts relating to the signing of important documents. 

A simpler explanation is that the Notary is responsible for checking the identification of the Signer(s) and authenticating that he or she is who they say they are.   A Notary does not authenticate the validity of the document, he or she authenticates you as the Signer(s). 

When you require notarization, you must observe the following rules:

Identification

You must always provide a valid, photo ID.  There are no exceptions to this rule. 

1.       For general notarization, you may provide a Driver’s License, a State Identification Card, Military Card or Government Identification. 

2.       A notary cannot accept a scan of identification from your phone, or a copy, it must be the original.

3.       If you are using Remote Notarization, you must check with the Notary as to whether the platform he or she is using accepts a Passport.