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AZ Senate Bill 1479

Legislation

State: Arizona
Signed: April 09, 2026

Effective: September 12, 2026
Chapter: 31

Summary

In a bill addressing deed fraud, Senate Bill 1479 requires Notaries to obtain the thumbprint of a signer in the journal for certain real property documents, as specified.

Affects

Amends Sections 41-254 and 41-263 of the Arizona Revised Statutes.

Changes
  1. Requires a Notary to obtain the signer’s right thumbprint in the Notary's journal when notarizing a deed, quitclaim deed, deed of trust, other document affecting real property, or a power of attorney document.
  2. Directs the Notary to use the signer’s left thumb or any available finger if the right thumb is unavailable and to note this substitution in the journal.
  3. Requires the Notary to indicate in the journal when the signer is physically unable to provide any thumbprint or fingerprint and to explain the physical condition preventing it.
  4. Exempts trustees’ deeds resulting from judicial or nonjudicial foreclosure and deeds of release and reconveyance from the journal thumbprint requirement.
  5. Exempts remote online notarial acts for the aforementioned documents from the journal thumbprint requirement if the audiovisual recording of the remote notarial act shows the remotely located individual’s ID credential number and the Notary retains the recording for at least 7 years.
  6. Makes clarifying changes.
  7. Strikes an obsolete date reference.
Analysis

In an effort to address deed fraud in Arizona, Senate Bill 1479 requires Notaries, for specified real property-related notarial acts and powers of attorney, to comply with a mandatory thumbprint requirement that is virtually identical to California’s journal thumbprint law. Arizona thus follows California as the only other state to enact a journal thumbprint requirement 30 years after California first enacted it in 1996.

Senate Bill 1479 also conditions a journal thumbprint exemption for remote notarizations on two safeguards: inclusion of the signer’s identification credential number in the journal and retention of the audiovisual recording of the remote notarial act for at least 7 years.  This is longer than the 5-year mandatory recording retention period for other remote notarial acts. Together, these coordinated amendments reinforce evidentiary reliability in remote real‑property notarizations while avoiding an impractical fingerprint requirement in a remote environment.

Read Senate Bill 1479.

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