NC Secretary of
State Releases Position Statement on Importance of
Notary Journal
In an effort to ensure
North Carolina Notaries Public are providing the
highest level of protection for the public, the
North Carolina Secretary of State’s office has
revisited their long-held position on keeping a
notary journal and has written a position statement
to support that position by outlining the reasons
notaries should voluntarily keep a journal of all
their notary acts.
Very simply, notaries
should keep a notary journal because it aids in
protecting the public from fraud and forgery.
Protecting the public interest is a primary tenet
of the notary law and each notary should consider
how important it is for a journal to be used in
protecting the public. Please see the Secretary of
State Position Statement on Notary Journals/Logbooks
below:
North Carolina General
Statute 10B-2(1)(3) states that the Notary Act’s
underlying purpose is “To promote, serve and protect
the public interests” and “To prevent fraud and
forgery.”
In light of the robo-signing
epidemic, identity theft and mortgage fraud related
to the foreclosure crisis, the Office of the
Secretary of State reasserts its long-held strong
recommendation that notaries keep a record of their
notary acts in a bound journal or log book.
Keeping a notary
journal aids in both protecting the public interest
and preventing fraud and forgery because it:
-
causes would-be
criminals to think twice before presenting a
forged signature to a notary knowing they will
be asked to leave proof of their request in the
form of their signature in a journal;
-
provides a level
of protection for the notary in the event a
signer later tries to disown a signature by
providing clear evidence in the form of their
signature that they did appear before a notary
on a given date to request a notarization; and
-
provides valuable
evidence to law enforcement officials
investigating allegations of notary misconduct
and criminal activity related to many forms of
document fraud.
Seeing that the simple
act of keeping a notary journal is clearly in
keeping with the stated purpose of the Notary Public
Act, in that it provides a level of protection to
the public against document fraud, safeguards
business transactions from those who would
shamelessly refute entering into a contract to skirt
their legal obligations, protects the notary from
baseless allegations of notary misconduct, and
provides valuable evidence to law enforcement
agencies in aiding them in their investigations
where fraud and forgery routinely occur, we call on
every notary to voluntarily keep a journal of
notarial acts as a best practice.
Notaries should keep a
bound journal so that pages are not easily removed
and should at a minimum record the date, type of
document, signer’s name, type of identification
presented along with the signer’s signature.