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OR House Bill 2090

Legislation

State: Oregon
Signed: May 26, 2009

Effective: January 01, 2010
Chapter: 123

Summary

In an effort to correct recent abuses of transactions involving Notary protests, House Bill 2090 limits performance of the notarial act of protest to certain Notaries an authorizes the Secretary of State to refuse to issue a commission or revoke or suspend the commission of any Notary who performs a protest while not authorized to do so.

Affects

Amends Sections 73.0505, 194.070, 194.090, 194.100, 194.152, and 194.166 of the Oregon Revised Statutes.

Changes
  1. Limits performance of the notarial act of protest only to Notaries who are officers or employees of a financial institution or investment company, an active member of the Oregon State Bar, or serve under the supervision of an officer, employee or member of a financial institution or investment company, or under the supervision of an Oregon State Bar member.
  2. Repeals a previous provision allowing a Notary who is stockholder, director, officer, or employee of a bank, trust company, or other corporation from protesting commercial paper that is owned or held for collection by the entity.
  3. Prohibits a Notary from protesting commercial paper owned or held for collection by a financial institution or investment company if the Notary is individually a party to the commercial paper.
  4. Clarifies that a Notary who is lawfully allowed to perform a protest must keep a record of all protests.
  5. Authorizes the Secretary of State to refuse to issue a commission or revoke or suspend the commission of any Notary who performs a protest while not authorized under the new law to do so.
  6. Makes technical changes. 
Analysis

“Protesting commercial paper” creates a mechanism to demand payment of promissory notes, unpaid checks and other payment instruments through the physical presentation of the item. The original purpose of protesting was to facilitate banking transactions and Notaries traditionally have performed a role in these protests. However, in Oregon and in many other states, Notary protests have been used in recent years to harass public officials, including judges, corrections officials and law enforcement officials. Furthermore, through the use of protests, certain fringe segments of the population have illegally attempted to eliminate valid debt obligations on mortgages and the security interest of mortgage lending institutions on real property by filing fraudulent documents containing protests. In these scams, Notaries, either knowingly or unknowingly, serve as “Notary Acceptors” on “claims of default” requiring a protest. House Bill 2090 attempts to counteract these unlawful uses of protests by limiting who can actually perform them.

Read House Bill 2090.

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