4 Career-Ending Notary Mistakes
By Kelly Rush on December 15, 2020
Notary careers are a lot like relationships — they need care and consideration to thrive, and basic rules must be followed to avoid serious complications, or even failure. Whether self-employed or working for someone else, many Notaries mistakenly assume that they have nothing to worry about when performing their duties. But certain mistakes are grave enough that they can cost a Notary their career.
As impartial, trusted public servants, you are expected to perform your duties with care, respond to all lawful requests without discrimination, take care to protect your seal and journal, and never overstep your bounds by offering advice or counsel you are not qualified to dispense. You are expected to be honest, keep private matters private while disclosing what's public, and always be conscientious and diligent.
This is true whether you perform notarizations occasionally, or every day. Even a seemingly inconsequential mistake, such as a favor for a friend, can be devastating.
To illustrate the point, here are four real-life cases where Notaries faced serious consequences, such as facing jail time, losing careers and being named in six-figure lawsuits due to easily avoidable mistakes. In some cases, Notaries made what seemed at first to be very small errors — such as accepting a photo of an ID instead of the real ID, but they all resulted in significant fallout. In other cases, Notaries were accused of fraud and knowingly participating in schemes that were illegal.
It doesn't take that much effort to stay on the right side of the law. Notaries who follow protocol, keep up to date on new laws and regulations, avoid shortcuts and refrain from offering improper advice will live in territory that's about as safe as one could reasonably expect.
Don't give in to pressure
A Cincinnati, Ohio, mobile Notary got a call one day from a couple needing some documents notarized. The appointment turned out to be in a parking lot. The couple brought deeds transferring ownership of four area homes to them, and they wanted the signature of the current homeowners notarized. There was just one problem: none of the homeowners were present.
The Notary later admitted to a local reporter that the couple "convinced" her to notarize the deeds despite the absent signers. If the Notary thought that was it, she was mistaken.
With the notarized deeds in hand, the couple filed them with the Hamilton County Auditor's Office. Because they were notarized, the auditor's office accepted them at face value, and the properties were transferred to the couple, according to local media reports. It turned out that none of the homeowners had signed the deeds transferring their property. It was all a scam to steal their homes.
When the scam was discovered, the police came knocking on the Notary's door. The couple were eventually convicted and sentenced to prison terms, but the authorities were not done.
The Notary was instrumental in helping a couple fraudulently steal four homes out from under their true owners, according to news reports. As a result, the Notary was indicted on four counts of tampering with records, according to the Hamilton County Clerk of Courts. Her case was still pending when The National Notary went to press.
Besides facing criminal charges and the embarrassment of public censure and news reports, she no longer is a Notary. According to the Ohio Secretary of State's office, the commission, which was valid through 2023, is listed as inactive/resigned. So a woman who started a mobile Notary business has now lost that business and is facing possible criminal penalties.
Failing to require signers to be present at the notarization is the number one claim of misconduct against Notaries. This case demonstrates why such a transgression is so serious. Had the Notary not allowed herself to be "convinced" to do something she knew was not right, she'd still be in business, and the deed fraud scheme potentially may have been thwarted.
The case also underscores how much power rests in any notarization. Notarized signatures on a deed is proof to a county recorder's office that the forged signatures are real.
Dishonesty never pays
While the Cincinnati Notary landed in trouble for one bad act, a North Carolina attorney committed a series of misdeeds, including two involving Notary misconduct.
In one instance, according to a North Carolina State Bar Association disciplinary order, the attorney, who also was a Notary, served as the administrator of a deceased man's estate. As part of her duties, she submitted a document to the local court purportedly signed by all three heirs to the estate granting permission to sell property. All the signatures were notarized by the attorney. However, one of the heirs did not sign the document, and therefore had not agreed to the sale.
In another instance, the attorney was preparing an estate plan for a client that required a title transfer of property held jointly by the client and her husband. The attorney notarized the signatures on the relevant documents without the client and her husband being present.
The attorney was disbarred, ordered to relinquish her law license and required to pay the costs of her own disciplinary hearing, according to the state bar association's disciplinary order. She also was convicted of two misdemeanor charges of performing a notarial act without the principal appearing. (In a statement to local media, the attorney claimed her mistakes were innocent, and said she was appealing the disbarment.)
The disciplinary order specifically calls out her refusal to take responsibility for her actions, her refusal to explain who she is and who she represents, and her lack of care in following basic procedure, which all undermine trust.
"Defendant has engaged in a pattern of intentionally dishonest conduct across numerous different contexts," the order noted, adding later, "Defendant's acts of Notary fraud demonstrate that she prioritized her own convenience and expediency over the integrity of the judicial process.
"When an attorney knowingly submits a forged and falsely notarized document to the court, it causes significant harm to the profession and the administration of justice," the order added. "Here, Defendant's knowing submission of the falsely notarized Petition and Consent Judgment caused significant potential harm … by causing the court to order the sale of the land when there was no legal or factual basis upon which to do so."
The essence of a Notary's role is to "serve all of the public in an honest, fair and impartial manner," notes the first Guiding Principle of The Notary Public Code of Professional Responsibility.
Whatever reason the attorney had for breaking the rules, she lost her license to practice law and earned herself a criminal record.
Protect yourself against impostors
The next case involves one of a Notary's most essential duties: verifying the identity of signers.
In this instance, a California Notary was asked to notarize the signature on a deed of trust. The signer didn't have an actual ID, but instead presented a grainy photocopy of an ID card. The Notary accepted it and completed the notarization, only to discover later that the signer was an impostor, said Kim McPartland, claims examiner for Merchants Bonding Company, which provides bond and E&O services for the National Notary Association.
The title company sued the Notary for $180,000, McPartland said, and he was held partly liable because he relied on a photocopy of an ID card instead of requiring the actual ID.
The Notary's attorney ended up settling for just $25,000, but even that amount could have done serious damage to the Notary's business and his career. "Had the Notary not had an errors and omissions policy, we couldn't have helped with attorney's fees or the settlement amount; the Notary would have been responsible for bearing significant costs on his own," McPartland said.
Don't ignore the details
This last case is an example of how even the missing a small detail could lead to serious consequences.
It involves another California Notary who was handling a signing for a real estate transaction. Under California law, Notaries are required to obtain a thumbprint from signers for any real estate-related document. Only the Notary failed to get a thumbprint for this signer, who was an impostor and pulling a scam.
The title company sued the Notary claiming that if she had obtained the thumbprint, the title company would have been able to trace the imposter's true identity. The lawsuit sought $250,000 in damages, McPartland said. Merchants settled with the title company on the Notary's behalf for $50,000. If the Notary hadn't had errors and omissions insurance, she would have been on the hook for the settlement amount and attorneys' fees.
"Tiny little things can come back and not only end the Notary's career but ... put them into bankruptcy."
Merchants Bonding Claims Examiner Kim McPartland
"Tiny little things can come back and not only end the Notary's career but potentially put them into bankruptcy," McPartland said. "Ninety percent of these cases come down to the fact that the Notary did not do the job correctly or did not have a journal to help with their defense."
Sometimes small mistakes are just that — mistakes no one notices or cares about and which have no consequences, but in the real world, a Notary can't know which mistakes will be harmless and which will result in serious harm to signers, financial institutions and others.
If you follow all the basic requirements of your office, consistently maintain high standards, remain impartial and never cut corners, you'll stay on the right side of the law and hang on to your commission.
Going the extra step might seem unnecessary, but it sure beats prison terms, public censure and a loss of a career.
3 important ways to protect your Notary commission
1. Say "no" to improper requests. You have a duty to refuse improper or potentially illegal notarization requests. If someone asks you to break the rules, such as forgoing requiring the signer to personally appear before you or ignoring proper identification requirements, stand firm and say "no."
2. Be cautious of friends and family members. Many Notaries have been tricked into enabling document fraud by a friend or family member. It's all too common, for example, for a close friend to ask a Notary to notarize an absent spouse's signature on financial documents because the spouse was "busy." Only later does the Notary find out the friend is divorcing the spouse and needed the notarized document to steal the spouse's money or property. Never agree to an improper or illegal act no matter what kind of relationship you have with the person making the request.
3. If something seems wrong or suspicious, stop the notarization and contact someone for help immediately — not afterward. The worst possible time to ask if something is wrong is after you've completed the notarization. By then, it's too late because the damage has already been done. If something seems suspicious about a notarization request, stop the notarization immediately and contact a trusted source of guidance such as your state Notary agency or the NNA Notary Hotline.