The Mobile Notary Journal
What is a Notary Public?
What is a notary public? To put it simply, a notary’s most common task is as a fraud guardian of legally binding documents. A notary is a state appointed public official who performs various fraud deterrent services for the legal, business, financial and real estate sectors. As our duty we verify the identity of a document singer, confirm their awareness of the document’s content / transaction and their signing at free will. Some notarizations require us to put the signer under oath and swear under penalty of perjury that the information contained in a document is true and correct. However, notarization does not prove the truthfulness of statements contained in a document nor legalize or validate them.
Notaries are NOT attorneys (though some attorneys are also notaries) and are prohibited from giving legal advice or any information that may be construed as practicing law. To make things a bit confusing, the direct Spanish translation of “notary public” is “notario publico”, which in some Latin American countries is a highly trained and qualified legal professional who is authorized to perform a wide range of legal tasks. Therefore, to prevent the misleading use or abuse of the translation, there are written laws that notaries must abide by when advertising in a language other than English. A more fitting Spanish translation, depending on the country in reference, would perhaps be “fedatario” or “escribano”.
Should you require professional and reliable mobile notary services, Southeast Los Angeles Notary is just a phone call away.
