Notary Public: Answering Your Questions

The Notary Public is a very important but often misunderstood or overlooked public servant. The fact is that in your everyday life you submit papers or receive papers that have gone through the hands of a notary public or maybe notaries public. In the world of notaries public there are a lot of rules to follow and a lot of procedures to go through. Just as with any complex thing in this world there will be questions that come up. There is so much information on the internet and in the community regarding notary public procedures and rules but not a lot of consistency. In addition, many places will cover one state or a couple of states but not all. The places that may have all of one type of procedure for all the states have very little if any additional material for you to look at. Over time we are going to unravel the mystery of the job of the notary public and today we will cover one frequently asked question among notaries public and that is can a Notary Public notarize a fax or a copy?

The answer to this burning question is yes a photocopy or fax can be notarized. There are a couple of things that must happen to notarize a copy is that the signature must be original. The paper can be a fax or a copy but not the signature. The other thing that you must do is find out if your local public recorders that you are notarizing the document for will accept a fax with an original signature. When a person is asking for something that is turned into them to be notarized not all of them will accept a copy, many want all original documents.

Another thing to consider is the type of paper the copy is made on. A lot of places put their documents on microfilm and a copy on glossy type paper will not translate well to that form of media. It is a good practice to make your copies on a regular bond paper in all cases just to be sure it will not create a problem.

Notary Public procedures and rules are complex and often difficult to understand so that is why we are here. We will untangle the world of notaries public so that we can keep this public service going strong.