| Ethics in Today's Market |
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| Written by William Ponsot | |
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As Notaries we are bound by certain codes of ethics and professional integrity which serve as our guidelines towards upholding our profession to its highest standards. Every time we are involved in the Notary Process; whether it be a simple acknowledgement or a series of documents such as is found in a loan package, we know what needs to be done, and how to do it. In addition we know what NOT to do.
There are many stories out there about irreverent notaries who routinely disregard these guidelines in order to make a quick dollar. In todays marketplace where work is more scarce than ever for the Signing Agent, the temptation may arise more routinely to disregard some of the tenets of our profession; and you may be asked to do something that crosses the line. Diligence and adherence to those tenets on our part can prevent a misstep and possibly serious issues thereafter. Back Dating is probably the most commonly requested misstep. In its simplest form it invalidates the document since it is a deliberate falsehood about when something was done - complicated further by the fact that many documents depend on the date for time of validation and duration of the terms of the document. Another issue arises when asked to accept Expired ID. Most acceptable forms of ID serve the primary purpose of identifying the holder, as proved by the issuing government agency according their established criteria. Expired, hence invalid ID cannot serve this purpose any longer since the issuing government agency upon whom we depend to certify the identity of said holder is no longer doing so. Although not at the top the list loose Acknowledgements or Jurats found in Loan Packages are another requested misstep that should be ignored. Lenders and/or Title Companies include them as a safety net “in case” they need one. Huh? No. Be happy to provide them a qualified Ack (that is properly dated with the document name and Signer[s] name[s] )upon a specific request. These 3 come to my mind first - I am sure there a few others which should be explored as well, so I invite anyone to add to the list |
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