Most, if not all, Notaries I know use ditto marks in their journals to carry down duplicative information; i.e. if you have several signings at the same location, just put ditto marks under the first entry for each additional line, right? Same for signatures. Just draw a diagonal line from the top entry line to the bottom, and have the client sign once. Sounds reasonable and saves a lot of time.
But what happens if someone orders a copy of a specific line item? How do they fill in the blanks where the ditto marks appear?
They can't.
I recently spoke with a representative of the National Notary Association (http://www.nationalnotary.org) Hot Line. It turns out that the time-honored practice of using ditto marks is out, by order of the Secretary of State. I called and verified this, although the policy change doesn't seem to be in writing (?). The SOS agent was very clear: the Notary must record all required information on each line, along with a separate signature. No more cutting corners time-wise.
I'm glad that this subject came up in my conversation with the Hot Line, but it is not mentioned on the NNA web site under California news. It would be nice to have a "heads up" regarding policy changes when they become aware of them. My esp is not that fine-tuned.
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Hello Madeline,
ReplyDeleteThank you for bringing attention to this important matter. I wanted to let you know that the National Notary Association posted a story about the issue on February 1, 2010. Here's a link: http://www.nationalnotary.org/bulletin/newsNotary.cfm?newsid=2435 The Notary Bulletin is available to all our members.
Sincerely,
Jim Wunderlich
Public Affairs Manager
National Notary Association
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