Category: In the News

We’ve seen some strange individual signings, but our tales of the bizarre has a new story. One of which a notary had to notarize someone’s blood for authenticity.

Wait, Did You Say Notarizing Someone’s Blood

This is already the talk of the skate board industry. Skating legend Tony Hawk had blood removed so it can be added to paint. The paint would be used on a limited line of skateboards.

We’re not talking about mortgage or title. The integrity of blood is on the line.

Those skateboards would then be sold at a high price to collectors of skateboards, as well as fans of bloody things.

We imagine the conversation went like this:

1. Collect blood
2. Mix blood into paint
3. Paint neat designs with said blood.
4. ???????
5. PROFIT!

And at the end of the day, they needed a notary to certify the blood was authentic, and not some blood from someone pretending to be Tony Hawk.

But the real question is:

Did the notary ask for Tony’s signature in blood for their kid’s wall? We kid, we kid.

It is All for a Good Cause

If we can get serious for a moment.

This limited edition of one hundred skateboards helps a couple of charities, not the new vampire skateboarding team.

Ordered by bottled water company Liquid Death, proceeds will go to 5 Gyres, as well as Tony’s personal charity, The Skateboard Project.

100 of the fully notarized and bloody skateboards will be sold for $500 apiece.

And that is the story of person who was notarizing someone’s blood.

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In a defeat to static notaries, Mississippi has passed a bill to lower notary fees in Mississippi.

The changes essentially make the maximum amount that can be charged for a signing to five dollars. That is five dollars a signature for documents notarized.

This may be a blow to storefront notaries, as the benefit of offering notarizations may have decreased as a different loss leader may offer more value.

A Move Towards Electronic and Mobile Signings

The interesting part of the bill eliminates the fee cap for both mobile and electronic signings.

Additional fees may be charged with services that go beyond the normal notarial act. This includes things like travel and digital fees like web streaming or video and doc storage. The only caveat is those fees must be agreed upon in advance.

The lowering of static fees, in conjunction with higher fees allowed for electronic and mobile signings, seems to pave the way for more remote signings in the state.

Here is the full text of the updated notary law.

This is a reminder we are not lawyers. We are not giving legal advice.

Attribution: We would like to thank By Rocky Vaughn, Sue Anna Joe, Dominique Pugh, Clay Moss, Kara Giles, and the Mississippi Department of Archives and History for the illustration of the Mississippi State Flag.

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We’ve talked quite a bit about temporary rules, and the temp rules for remote notarizations expired in New York.

Lost in the shuffle of the return to our national holiday, the rules allowing remote notarizations in the state of New York expired. All notaries in the state were alerted before the expiration started, but new rules are yet to be issued.

How We Got Here

Governor Cuomo signed an executive order in March of 2020 implementing emergency rules for remote notarization, as well as a slew of other things. All of these were stated to end in July 2021.

The order included things like remote notarization, travel restrictions, a state of emergency, among others. All of those have been rolled back, but only a few, like using online notaries are stuck in limbo. A couple of other orders have already been extended, including paid leave rules.

What is up Next for Remote Notarizations in New York

A bill has already been presented to the state Senate, where it has already passed committee. It is expected to be passed through the legislature and signed by the governor, but the exact timeline on that is unknown.

What is known is it will pass. What, if any, changes to the original order remain to be seen, as the bill could still go through some negotiations.

As we move forward it is important to stay on top of things. Expiring rules, new rules, updated rules are all coming, and they will be hard to keep track of.

New complications are as states move to go forward with online signings.

As states move to approve their versions of RON signings, it has come up across the country where specific county or local laws prohibit things like the way recordings are legally performed. This is now leading to a move to get specific counties to jump on board.

But, that is easier said than done, and certain states could have ongoing issues.

There are still limitations to the usefulness of RON, and it remains to be seen if these limitations will recede over time. While all counties in Oregon now accept electronic recording of documents notarized by the traditional in-person method, not all counties accept documents notarized by RON.

JD Supra

A Tad Bit Confusing

Maybe more than a tad.

The variety of laws regarding online signings and the variety of hurdles remain significant. While there is no doubt what direction we are headed in, the path to the destination may seem like the Wonderful Wizard of RON.

As we continue to travel the maze, we would recommend you get any training and/or licensing you need. You will need.

How Can You Avoid a Potentially Invalid Signing

To be honest, there is probably no perfect solution.

But, work with your clients, the ones who do business there. They cannot operate if the signing is invalid, so they are quite invested in the situation.

You can try to check by using a search engine, but that may be futile. Even if you find what you are looking for, does not mean you understand it.

But, we would recommend to know your area. Even if that means calling or going personally to ask. It may not be the core of your business, but it sure would seem that you know your business if and when it comes up. And if you are properly networking in the community, it will come up sooner or later.

Imagine being able to step in and rectify a problem before it starts. Now that kind of expertise and customer service will go a long way into making you their go to notary.

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New updates to West Virginia Notary Laws Update on June 17th.

The bill focuses on remote online notarizations (RON) and remote ink notarial acts (RIN).

Executive Order Exemption

The main crux of the bill is to extend an executive order from last year. The actual new bill, SB 469, was signed into law and begins on June 17th, 2021. It pertains to the validation of virtual notarization acts.

Notaries will be required to register and be approved as an online notary.

This bill will impact anyone using or planning to use remote notary services. In some cases, the update might change some aspects of current documents.

RIN refers to acts by remotely located individuals, whereby the individuals exchange wet-signed documents but verify identities and acts using a communication technology platform.

National Law Review

To be honest, we are not lawyers, and their article is really good, so we would recommend you visit the National Law Review to read more about the new bill.

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