As a Notary Signing Agent I have performed a lot of loan signings over the past 7 years. Loan document packages can contain sometimes up to 5-10 documents that need to be notarized by each borrower. Thus, I have used ditto marks and diagonal lines in my Notary Journal. I was actually taught by the National Notary Association that this was acceptable. The NNA is now saying that "California Notaries should no longer follow this practice." In a recent article, the NNA states:
"When completing multiple notarizations for the same signer - a common occurrence for mortgages and other real estate-related transactions, for example - Notaries commonly use ditto marks to repeat the same information on successive lines in their journals, and they often draw a diagonal line across the signature spaces so the signer only has to sign the journal once.
But that should not be a practice for Notaries in the Golden State. The Secretary's clarification reads: 'Government Code Section 8206 requires that the Notary Public's journal include all the information for ‘each official act.' Therefore, each act would include the date, time, type of each official act, character of the instrument, signature, type of identifcation and thumbprint (if applicable) on a separate line for each act.'"
Does this mean every signer must also place their thumbprint next to their signature on each and every line? I can't wait to see what kind of response I get from signers when they have to sign their name multiple times after just signing, dating and initialing an entire loan document package consisting of approximately 100 pages.
I better stock up on notary journals and thumbprinters now because this will take up a lot of space! I'll be going through journals like nobody's business. Journals and thumbprinters aren't cheap either.
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