MT Senate Bill 269

Legislation

State: Montana
Signed: April 28, 2007

Effective: April 28, 2007
Chapter: 344

Summary

Senate Bill 269 prescribes document formatting requirements for recordable documents.

Affects

Amends Section 7-4-2636 of the Montana Code Annotated.

Changes

Requires all signatures, initials, dates, handwriting and Notary seals on recordable instruments to be in blue or black ink.
Specifies that recordable instruments have a top margin of 3 inches on the first page and top and bottom margins of 1 inch and side margins of ½ inch (previously 1 inch).
Exempts a Notary acknowledgment certificate from the color, typeface and font requirements of the section. (Note: the section requires all fonts to be at least 10 points.)
Exempts officially certified in-state or out-of-state court or government documents from the recordable formatting standards.

Analysis

Except for the Notary’s certificate of acknowledgment, Senate Bill 269 requires a Notary stamp, handwriting, dates, initials and signatures appearing on a recordable document to be in blue or black ink. While the Notary’s acknowledgment is exempted from this requirement, the NNA recommends that Notaries use blue or black ink to handwrite any information into blanks in an acknowledgment certificate. In order to easily identify an original document and to prevent fraud, the NNA recommends use of dark blue ink.

Read Senate Bill 269.