Strengthening Our Foundations

Impartiality

As notaries public, we are impartial witnesses to a wide range of transactions for government agencies, businesses, and individuals. To be impartial means to not take sides in any dispute or transaction, but for us in practice, it also means that we cannot hold any interest in or gain any benefit from whatever is presented to us to notarize.

It is critical that we perform our duties as accurately as possible because our clients depend on our notarizations to hold up under scrutiny. Did we properly identify the signer? Was the certificate filled in, signed and sealed correctly? Did we give an oath when it was required? If we fail to accurately complete a notarization, we be subject to legal penalties, possibly even losing our commission altogether. More importantly, however, if our notarization is challenged in a court of law, it could be found to be invalid. If this happens, for example, with a power of attorney, that power of attorney could also be found to be invalid. Every time something like this happens, it erodes the trust the public places in us as notaries public.

Impartiality, accuracy, and integrity are the cornerstones of the office of the notary public, and it is my sincerest hope that as we move forward together in our notary public journeys, that our conversations here will help to strengthen this foundation, both as a community and as individuals.

Having integrity means that we hold to a set of ethical standards in the performance of our duties. Anyone who has taken the NNA signing agent course will recognize this as the Signing Professionals Workgroup Certified Signing Specialist Code of Conduct (SPW Code of Conduct). Every year, those of us who are notary singing agents must take an ethics test based on this code of conduct and recommit each year to upholding that code. This annual test helps us to keep these ethics top of mind all year long.

While this code of conduct is aimed at notary signing agents, a great deal of it applies to all notaries, whatever their professional focus. I highly recommend that everyone downloads, frequently reviews and adheres to the SPW Code of Conduct.

Accuracy

A Strong Foundation

Integrity