Wills do not need to be notarized. - Gil Faver

Andy writes:

In Texas, if a will is notarized, it is called a "self
proving will", and there is no need for the witnesses to
appear in court at a probate hearing.

In effect, the notary is an "officer of the court", and is
certifying that all parties signing the will (grantor, and
at least two witnesses) are who they say they are and did
sign the will on such and such a day.

It does not lessen the requirement of witnesses ( 2 in
Texas) , but it does keep them from ever having to mess
with the will again, in case the will is contested later or
there is some problem with the validity....

It serves a useful purpose. However, this may vary by
state.

Remember, the notary is not "certifying" the will, but is
giving sworn written testimony that all parties who signed
have identified themselves.

Nothing more.

Andy

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Rick Merrill <rick0.merrill[at]NOSPAMgmail.com> wrote:
- quote -

What state are you in? In California notarization of a
document when it's not needed is of no use. In particular
notarizing a will is useless, and sometimes worse than
useless. That's because sometimes people think they can
notarize a will instead of having the required number of
witnesses signing the proper oath. For people who do that,
the will is invalid.

On the other hand, an estate planning trust (or any other
kind for that matter) must be notarized if it is to deal
with real estate or corporate stock.

Stu

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Seth Breidbart wrote:
- quote -

Wills can be notarized. This is an especially good thing to
do if one is making changes to a prior will.

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Stuart A. Bronstein <spamtrap[at]lexregia.com> wrote:

- quote -

Yes, then file a police report.

Steve

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"Han" <nobody[at]nospam.not> wrote:

- quote -

Wills do not need to be notarized.

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Steve Pope <spope33[at]speedymail.org> wrote:
- quote -

I think the notary is attesting to (1) the signature is
valid AND (2) the underlying document is NOT KNOWN TO (the
notary to) BE INVALID.

The notary is not required to read or understand the
underlying document.

Seth

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Han <nobody[at]nospam.not> wrote:

- quote -

Notarizing and wills have nothing to do with each other.

Seth

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pope33[at]speedymail.org (Steve Pope) wrote:
- quote -

It would be helpful if you said what state you are referring
to. All states are not created equal.

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spope33[at]speedymail.org (Steve Pope) wrote:
- quote -

I don't think anybody disputes that. But that wasn't the
issue.

The issue was, if the notary is informed that the document
is false so that the signature is, in effect, fraudulent,
should he notarize the signature anyway?

Stu

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- quote -

Since my place of work is in a VA Hospital, I use the notary
public there. Wouldn't most hospitals have one, just in case
you'd want to make out a will just before your operation?

--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid

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Seth Breidbart <sethb[at]panix.com> wrote:

- quote -

I disagree that a notary is attesting to the validity of
a document's contents. A notary is only attesting to the
validity of the signature.

Steve

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"Stuart A. Bronstein" <spamtrap[at]lexregia.com> wrote:
- quote -

Very interesting. As a CPA with a small office, I had people
coming by all the time looking for a notary and thinking
either I would be one, or would know where to find one. At
one point it was nearly impossible for an individual to find
a notary around here. Most worked for either banks, attorneys,
or title companies/real estate firms. In theory the bank ones
were public, but they never seemed to be available. Spent
more time out to lunch or on vacation than could be believed.
And I'm in California.

Now most of the box and shipping places have a notary on the
premises. Makes life a little easier.

Jo

Moderator:
There's a notary at a local liquor store. He charges $3
and says he does 10 to 20 documents a week because notaries
are so hard to find.

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Cheryl Kaster <signinghawaii[at]hawaii.rr.com> wrote:

- quote -

If I have already lent the money, I want the Note notarized.

If I haven't lent the money yet, I don't want to lend it, so
the Notary shouldn't notarize (as if that would have any
effect: the borrower would just find another notary on the
next block, and this time keep his mouth shut).

So unless the Notary copies the Note and mails me a message,
I'm not going to know that the first 15 Notaries refused to
notarize it.

Seth

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kamlet[at]panix.com (Arthur Kamlet) wrote:

- quote -

I guess you could say that. A notary public is someone that
serves the public. There are (at least in California) no
notaries private - those who are employed only to notarize
the documents of their employers. Notaries are not supposed
discriminate in who they notarize for.

Stu

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- quote -

Which leads me to ask if someone can be a notary private?

If not, isn't "public" superflouous? Or redundant? whatever.

__
Art Kamlet ArtKamlet [at] AOL.com Columbus OH K2PZH

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"Cheryl Kaster" <signinghawaii[at]hawaii.rr.com> wrote:

- quote -

In particular with respect to a jurat you are right. You
are not just notarizing his signature, but also his oath.
If you know is oath is not truthful, you shouldn't notarize.

With respect to an acknowledgement, which is the most common
thing to notarize in my practice, you're just swearing to
the identity of the person signing.

Stu

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- quote -

Actually I agree with your intention there, in that if we
can "educate" a client and then he decides to "do the right
thing," perhaps we've gained a client for life.

However in Mrs Kaster's question, somehow, some way, I read
all of her message as referring to the same miscreant, i.e.
the one she suspected of falsifying an application was the
same potential tax client. Maybe they were two different
individuals.

So to be clear, if you suspect someone of trying to pull the
wool over your eyes, either as a notary public (not a
notorious republican which I am), or as a tax preparer, and
you can't be satisfied by either questioning or resolving
the problem in your own mind, iow, if you still suspect he's
lying, by all means, show him the door.

There used to be a Chevrolet commercial down South which
counseled: "Don't you BUYYYYYY no UGly TRUCk!"

And I say, "Don't you take no ugly clients."

ChEAr$,
Harlan Lunsford, EA n LA

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Let me give you another example that I am dealing with at
the moment.

Borrower is being asked to sign a document called an
"Affidavit of No Judgment" in which the borrower is being
asked to swear, under oath, that he is not one of the
persons that appears on an attached list of people who have
judgments against them (with the same name).

FYI, a Notary Public must not permit a signer to swear to
something that the Notary knows is not true. Therefore,
with regard to documents that require a Jurat (Subscribed
and Sworn to <they signed in front of me and I gave them an
oath as to the truth of the information> before me...) it is
absolutely required that the Notary be cognizant of what the
document say, especially as, in this case, there is NO
ATTACHED LIST for the borrower to look at.

If I were to simply ignore the contents of the document and
an issue came up later, I would be guilty of notarizing an
INCOMPLETE document and swearing someone to the truth of
something that they had NO POSSIBLE WAY of knowing was the
truth. Doing so does not make any logical sense. What
would be the point of that affidavit?

If there were a list attached, then and the borrower were to
tell me that he is one of those listed on the attachment,
then I also could not swear him to the truth of a statement
that says he is not on the list, because I would know...same
as when TPs reveal income they are not wanting to report,
that what is being stated in the affidavit, as written, is
NOT THE TRUTH.

If he were on the list and he agreed to modify the wording
of the affidavit to correctly reflect his status in
relationship to the attached list, etc., then I could
proceed with the notarization.

While notarization does not make a document "legal," a
Notary Public must not take part (notarizing a document is
making that Notary a party to the transaction) in a
transaction which the Notary knows or REASONABLY SUSPECTS to
be dishonest or fraudulent in any way.

The document must stand on its own, apart from the
notarization, to be "legal" and the "legality" of the form
of the document is not my concern. However, to a certain
extent, the content and what is contained in or attached to,
or being sworn to IS MY CONCERN as a Notary Public.

EXAMPLE: YOU are asking someone to sign a PROMISSORY NOTE to
you, but you cannot be there, and you don't really know the
person , so you have the Note notarized. What if during the
signing the person admits to the Notary Public that they
really have no intention of paying this money back, they are
just signing it because they want to make you happy and get
you off their back about the money they owe you. Would you
really want the Notary to go ahead and notarize this Note
and say nothing to you about it?

In many ways, being a Tax Preparer and a Notary have
similarities with regard to not being part of something
(either a document signing or a tax filing) which contains
information or actions that are not legal or not true.
Someone could just as easily say, it's none of the Tax
Preparer's business whether or not I am reporting all of my
income. All they have to do is work with the numbers I give
them. Sure, I only make $10,000 a year and I support five
people. It's none of their business how I do that.

--
Cheryl R.L. Kaster, Honest Notary
Mobile Notary Public
Certified Notary Signing Agent
Signing Hawaii, Inc.
Honolulu, Hawaii
www.signinghawaii.com
(808) 524-8040
(808) 356-0163 (Fax)

* * * Doing what is right, not just what is convenient.* * *

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- quote -

Well, I would disagree with this in principle as it could
also incur liability that my E&O coverage would not cover if
I FAILED to be appropriately discriminatory. On the other
hand, I do not advise with regard to the legality of or
contents of documents or give legal advice, but I can and do
make a judgment with regard to whether or not there is
something illegal being attempted. Not that I run across
that type of situation every day (where it is possible to
determine this on the face of it), but it does occur as I
have explained in other posts and I would be remiss to be
aware of this type of activity and continue with the
notarization.

--
Cheryl R.L. Kaster, Honest Notary
Mobile Notary Public
Certified Notary Signing Agent
Signing Hawaii, Inc.
Honolulu, Hawaii
www.signinghawaii.com
(808) 524-8040
(808) 356-0163 (Fax)

* * * Doing what is right, not just what is convenient.* * *

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Seth Breidbart wrote:
- quote -

Right. And I can add nothing to that.

ChEAr$,
Harlan

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