A Silent Revolution Is Happening In The World Of Notaries

A notarization is an unsung act, sought by mandate and rarely by choice. It is a necessity driven by a legal requirement to verify the authenticity of the document and signer.

The notarization process takes place in-person with the notary or notary public, who is authorized by the state to screen and verify the identity of the signer and to certify the legitimacy of the notarized documents.

For decades, arguably centuries it has happened the same way. The forms of identity may have changed but not the principle. You take the documents in the physical presence of a notary. The notary verifies your identity by asking to see your state driver license or identification. You are then required to sign the document in their presence. If witnesses are required, they accompany you and go through the same process. The notary counter signs and stamps the document. They make an entry in their notary log and have you sign (and sometimes fingerprint) against it.

As you may imagine, the manual process has a number of limitations. Firstly, there is no way for the notary to actually validate your identity. They take a look at the identification and then back at you! Secondly, the book which is the notary log is archaic and not very secure. If the notary loses the book, they lose access to all their transactions and your details. Finally, it is easy to manipulate the wet ink signatures and stamps of a final notary document.

The Case for Online Notarization

Would you be interested in limiting the effort you had to go through to notarize a document? What if the process was way more accurate and secure? What if you could do it from wherever you wanted, whenever you wanted?

If you said yes to personal safety, saving time and no extra expenditure like travel cost, meet Remote Online Notarization or RON.

What is remote online notarization (RON)?

RON, or remote online notarization, is the way to get the documents signed and notarized in an electronic form from anywhere in the world. It enables notaries and their clients to get documents signed and notarized without meeting each other. The parties use a secure electronic signature and interact with a remote online notary using online audio-visual technology.

With RON, signers access an online notary platform like AtNotarize. They can connect with specific notaries or access available notaries. The process is simple and initiated by the user or the notary on behalf of the user.

It includes uploading the document, verifying identity and connecting on an audio-video call. There is a recording of the transaction. Every state has a slightly different requirement for verification and document storage, but they are broadly similar. This process may be new to some but will soon become the preferred way to notarize documents. Most notaries fully expect to do some initial handholding, since this is still new.

COVID-19 pandemic has increased the already spiking demand for remote online notarization. More states now have either a permanent or temporary law allowing their notaries to contact RON. Currently, 28 states allow RON permanently, while 20 have temporary laws.

You can notarize pretty much any document online including doing a mortgage closing online.

Next time you want to notarize documents, ask your preferred notary if they can do an online notarization. Be a part of the online notarization revolution.