SummarySenate Bill 299 establishes both a journal and an education requirement for Montana Notaries. It requires that all first-time applicants for a Notary commission, and all existing Notaries seeking reappointment against whom a complaint has been filed or evidence of improperly notarized documents has been submitted to the Secretary of State, take a training course. The new law also requires use of an inking seal alone as the official seal. It shortens the residency requirement for commission applicants from 1 year to 30 days.
The education training requirement takes effect July 1, 2010.
AffectsAmends Sections 1-5-401, 1-5-402, 1-5-416, 1-5-419 and 1-5-610 of the Montana Code Annotated
AnalysisSenate Bill 299 is a significant new law which requires all applicants for a first-time Notary commission and all existing Notaries seeking reappointment against whom a complaint has been filed or evidence of improperly notarized documents has been submitted to the Secretary of State to take a training course certified by the Secretary. In addition, SB 299 mandates that all Notaries keep an official journal of notarial acts. While in the past 10 years mandatory education laws have been enacted by Florida, California, Missouri, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Oregon, North Carolina (for electronic Notaries) and Delaware (for electronic Notaries), in stark contrast Montana is the first state in many decades to pass a mandatory journal requirement. The Montana Secretary of State requested the NNA’s assistance in lobbying for the education and journal provisions of SB 299 and in an eleventh hour turnaround, SB 299 was snatched from the jaws of defeat and was stunningly enacted and signed into law. Other provisions of this new law, such as the change requiring use of an inking stamp alone as an official seal, clarifications about the reappointment process and requirements for transferring journal records and destroying the official seal at the end of a commission and upon resignation or removal from office, or the Notary’s death, are overshadowed by the more substantive education and journal provisions.
Read the bill text.