Notary Public Underwriters Blog
Customer Expectations Versus Notarization Requirements
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- Published: May 26, 2025
As a notary public, one of the most common—and frustrating—challenges you’ll face is bridging the gap between what your clients think you can do and what the law actually allows you to do. Most people simply don’t understand the legal boundaries that notaries must operate within, and they often make requests that, if honored, could lead to serious legal trouble.
You’ve likely heard at least one of these before:
“We just need you to stamp this document.”
“My boss asked me to have a notary certify this financial report.”
“We need your notary statement backdated to the same date as this document.”
“Thought I’d get your notary stamp on this now, then I’ll get everyone’s signatures at this afternoon’s meeting.”
“Please notarize this for Sam in Production; you know I can vouch for him since we both work in that department.”
“We need a notary to swear that this document is truthful and stamp it, please.”
“What do you mean Mr. Big has to be here for you to notarize. I know you recognize his signature!”
The examples above reflect very common scenarios that notaries face. Most customers and coworkers have no perception of how detailed and restrictive notarial requirements are.
Guiding Principles—Notarization and Recordkeeping
- Let’s start with the most obvious imperative: decline to notarize every time that you know you should. To do this, you must be very familiar with your state’s notarization requirements and restrictions and prepared to insist on the correct course of action no matter who is urging you to notarize anyway.
- Never make an exception “just this once.” That single exception could be the one that subjects you to disciplinary action by your state’s notary officials or that leads to the loss of your commission.
- Document every notarial act in your record book (journal). Your chronological record book of notarial acts not only provides evidence of the notarial acts you performed, but it can also be considered evidence of notarial acts that you did not. The key is for you to be diligent about your recordkeeping. Make recordkeeping nonnegotiable so you can—if it’s ever necessary—testify under oath that you consistently create a record in your book every time that you perform a notarial act.
Whether you’re already a devoted user of a notary record book or now inspired to become one, consider one of our notary public record books. It’s lightweight, well organized, and thoughtfully designed to help you capture all the information that you’re expected to keep in each numbered entry.
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