To start off this blog, a good place to begin would be to lay out and explain what exactly a Notary Public is and what it entails. When I would tell people I was going to take a certified course on becoming a Notary Public many people had no idea what a Notary Public is. After explaining what a Notary is, they would then ask what a Notary does. Despite an adequate response to their questions, I myself did not know all the details about what a Notary does and so I did some more research into what exactly is a Notary.

By definition, given by the NNA (National Notary Association) a Notary is: “A Notary Public is an official of integrity appointed by state government —typically by the secretary of state — to serve the public as an impartial witness in performing a variety of official fraud-deterrent acts related to the signing of important documents.”

So, although being a Notary is an appointed position given by the Secretary of State, which serves an important purpose, the responsibility of the notarized document lies with the party requesting the document. A Notary duty is to make sure that the notarized document(s) are properly signed in his/her presence, check for completeness and makes sure that the signer understands what he/she is signing.