NOTARY PUBLIC: You May Rarely Need One, But When You Do, You Need to know what they do.

Because we rarely use a notary public, some people have a misconception of what a Notary Public does.  They often think that by putting their seal on a document, it is a declaration that the document or statement is true.  This is not the case.

 
Laws differ from state-to-state, but a notary public witnesses the signing of documents and insures to the best of their ability that the person signing the document is who they say they are.  The notary does this by asking for their driver’s license, passport, military ID, or other legal proof of identification.  (There are some exceptions to this rule if a person doesn’t have identification, but I’ll save that for another time.)

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