Concept

Notary public

A notary public ( notary or public notary; () notaries public) of the common law is a public officer constituted by law to serve the public in non-contentious matters usually concerned with general financial transactions, estates, deeds, powers-of-attorney, and foreign and international business. A notary's main functions are to validate the signature of a person (for purposes of signing a document); administer oaths and affirmations; take affidavits and statutory declarations, including from witnesses; authenticate the execution of certain classes of documents; take acknowledgments (e.g., of deeds and other conveyances); provide notice of foreign drafts; provide exemplifications and notarial copies; and, to perform certain other official acts depending on the jurisdiction. Such transactions are known as notarial acts, or more commonly, notarizations. The term notary public only refers to common-law notaries and should not be confused with civil-law notaries. With the exceptions of Louisiana, Puerto Rico, Quebec (whose private law is based on civil law), and British Columbia (whose notarial tradition stems from scrivener notary practice), a notary public in the rest of the United States and most of Canada has powers that are far more limited than those of civil-law or other common-law notaries, both of whom are qualified lawyers admitted to the bar: such notaries may be referred to as notaries-at-law or lawyer notaries. Therefore, at common law, notarial service is distinctly different from the practice of law, and giving legal advice and preparing legal instruments is forbidden to lay notaries such as those appointed throughout most of the United States. Despite these distinctions, lawyers in the United States may apply to become notaries, and this class of notary is allowed to provide legal advice, such as determining the type of act required (affidavit, acknowledgment, etc.). Notaries are appointed by a government authority, such as a court, governor, county commissioners, or lieutenant governor, or by a regulating body often known as a society or faculty of notaries public.

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Related publications (1)

Virtual X-ray Reading (VXR) of Ancient Administrative Handwritten Documents

Giorgio Margaritondo, Frédéric Kaplan, Fauzia Albertin, Marco Stampanoni

The study of ancient documents is too often confined to specimens of high artistic value or to official writings. Yet, a wealth of information is often stored in administrative records such as ship records, notary papers, work contract, tax declaration, co ...
2014
Related concepts (11)
Civil law notary
Civil-law notaries, or Latin notaries, are lawyers of noncontentious private civil law who draft, take, and record legal instruments for private parties, provide legal advice and give attendance in person, and are vested as public officers with the authentication power of the State. As opposed to most notaries public, their common-law counterparts, civil-law notaries are highly trained, licensed practitioners providing a full range of regulated legal services, and whereas they hold a public office, they nonetheless operate usually—but not always—in private practice and are paid on a fee-for-service basis.
Notary
A notary is a person authorised to perform acts in legal affairs, in particular witnessing signatures on documents. The form that the notarial profession takes varies with local legal systems. A notary, while a legal professional, is distinct from an advocate in that they do not represent the person who engages their services, or act in contentious matters. The Worshipful Company of Scriveners use an old English term for a notary, and are an association of notaries practising in central London since 1373.
Solicitor
A solicitor is a legal practitioner who traditionally deals with most of the legal matters in some jurisdictions. A person must have legally-defined qualifications, which vary from one jurisdiction to another, to be described as a solicitor and enabled to practise there as such. For example, in England and Wales a solicitor is admitted to practise under the provisions of the Solicitors Act 1974. With some exceptions, practising solicitors must possess a practising certificate.
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