SummaryEstablishing a 4-year pilot program, SB 546 requires Notaries to create a “Notarial Record” for any qualifying “Document of Conveyance” affecting or purporting to affect title to residential real property in Cook County, Illinois, from June 1, 2009 through June 30, 2013. The new law specifies the entries for the Notarial Record, including a thumbprint, prescribes a statutory form and provides for the proper disposition of the Notarial Record. The new law allows Notaries who create a Notarial Record to charge $25 for the notarization.
AffectsAmends Sections 3-101, 3-102, 3-104, and 6-102 of the Illinois Compiled Statutes.
AnalysisSenate Bill 546 blazes a new trail in efforts to curb real property fraud in Cook County, Illinois. The idea of a Notary creating an independent record of a notarial act (i.e., a journal entry) is not new; neither is the Notary taking a thumbprint of each signer for this record (California). However, the “Notarial Record” created under a new 4-year pilot program by SB 546 requires more comprehensive information than a typical journal entry; it may not be kept by the Notary; and it must be delivered either to the title insurance company or agent, financial institution or attorney employing the Notary, or to the Cook County Recorder of Deeds within 14 days of the notarization. Any Illinois Notary who notarizes a Document of Conveyance of residential real property that is situated in Cook County must complete a Notarial Record for the conveyance; therefore this new law could impact anyone of the almost 200,000 Notaries in Illinois. The Notary will have to look carefully at the legal description of the property in a Document of Conveyance to verify that the property is located within Cook County in order to determine whether a Notarial Record must be created. In addition, the Notary will have to know whether the deed being transacted qualifies as a “Document of Conveyance.” The new law exempts many types of deeds, including court-ordered and court-authorized conveyances, judicial sale deeds, deeds transferring ownership of property to a trust where the beneficiary is the grantor, deeds from grantors to themselves that are intended to change the nature or type of tenancy, deeds from a granter to the grantor and another person that are intended to establish a tenancy between the grantor and the other person, deeds in lieu of foreclosure and deeds transferring ownership to a revocable or irrevocable grantor trust where the beneficiary includes the grantor. In light of these very technical requirements, it is surprising that Senate Bill 546 does not mandate education for Notaries. It is difficult to imagine that the average Notary will know how to create and file a Notarial Record without training.
Read Senate Bill 546.