The Notary Hotline receives hundreds of calls daily from Notaries nationwide who find themselves in challenging situations. To boost your knowledge of Notary best practices, we’ve created a series of scenarios based on actual situations and ask a simple question: What would you do?
Imagine you’re about ready to call it a day when a married couple comes to you to get a set of mortgage refinance documents notarized. Everything seems fine, except the husband has a cast on his right wrist and hand. The wife explains that he broke his wrist in a biking accident.
You check their IDs. The husband doesn’t look exactly like his driver’s license photo, but it’s obviously an old photo. The man has put on some weight and grown a beard, but the general features seem to be similar.
You notice, however, that his signature on the documents does not resemble the one on his ID. The wife says it’s simply due to his broken wrist. The cast does make it difficult to hold a pen normally.
What would you do?
Notaries often are confronted with situations that require judgment calls. When checking a signer’s ID, for example, you often have to compare the signer before you to a small photo that may have been taken a decade or more ago. And people’s signatures can be affected by medical issues.
In this case, do you see the husband’s issues as warning signs? Or do you accept the explanations as reasonable? If you see them as warning signs, what steps would you take to resolve your concerns?
To participate in this week’s “What Would You Do?” scenario, share your answers in the comments section below. We may mention your response in next week’s Bulletin, when we offer the best possible answer(s) to this notarial challenge.
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A guide to notarizing for physically impaired signers
How to be prepared for signers with special needs