Master Your Notary Knowledge: Jurats
Last week we dove into mastering our Notary knowledge by getting a complete and total understanding of the Acknowledgement, How to fill out the Acknowledgment, and the requirements of the signer. You can read that here. Today let's dive into the rules and guidelines for completing a Jurat.
Like an Acknowledgment, a Jurat is a notarization process and a form. It has different requirements than Acknowledgments and different rules. Of course, your state rules about Acknowledgments and Jurats may differ from California’s, but I will leave you the resources to help you discover what processes you need to know and master for your state.
Let's get into the Jurat. In some states, it may be called a “verification upon oath or affirmation.” Either way, the purpose of the Jurat is for the singer to swear or affirm to the Nnotary Public that the document's contents are truthful.
Here are the steps to complete a Jurat notarization:
The signer must go before you and sign the document in your presence. This is different than the Acknowledgment, which allows the signer to have signed the document before you arrive.
The Notary must identify the signer in California and some other states.
The Notary must then administer a verbal oath or affirmation. The signer must respond out loud. Silent acknowledgments will not be accepted.
Although it's not required by law, it's highly recommended that the signers raise their right hand while the oath or affirmation is being administered.
** A Jurat can not be completed by someone offering to take the oath in someone else's name. The original signer must swear or affirm in the presence of the notary.
Are you asking yourself, “What do I say” when taking an oath or affirmation? The NNA has a great article on how to handle this process. You can check out that article here, but I will outline the overview.
Require the person taking the oath or affirmation to appear before you physically. Unless expressly authorized by law, oaths, and affirmations may not be administered remotely.
Ask the person for acceptable proof of identification as prescribed by state law. An oath or affirmation may be part of the notarial act of a verification on oath or affirmation or jurat requiring the individual to sign the document containing the sworn statement. Proving identity is a requirement for these notarial acts.
Ask the person to raise their right hand or make another ceremonial gesture before responding to emphasize the seriousness of the process. While these ceremonial formalities are seldom required by law, they have value in impressing upon your signer the significance of their actions. Some signers — and even some Notaries — make light of the situation, but it’s clearly not the best time to crack jokes. Be professional and a role model in administering oaths and affirmations at all times, and your customer will respond in kind.
Administer the oath or affirmation by asking if the person swears or affirms the truthfulness of their statement. Depending on your state, the wording may be formulated as a question or a statement.
California provides the following wording for an oath or affirmation in the form of questions:
For an oath: “Do you solemnly state that the evidence you shall give in this issue (or matter) shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you, God?”
For an affirmation: “Do you solemnly state, under penalty of perjury, that the evidence that you shall give in this issue (or matter) shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?” (Code of Civil Procedure 2094[a]).Require the person taking the oath or affirmation to answer “Yes” or “I do” if the oath or affirmation is a question, or have the person repeat the oath or affirmation after you if the form is a statement. Because the signer’s answer puts them under penalty of perjury, it’s important that the Notary clearly understand the signer's response. Nodding, saying “uh-huh,” or other ambiguous responses are inappropriate. -NNA “A Notary’s Guide to Oath and Affirmations.”
You will encounter many different notarizations and, usually, more than one Jurat when notarizing loan documents. It may seem inconvenient, but you must administer an oath for each and every jurat as they apply to different documents with different information.
How do you decide between an Oath and an Affirmation? The short answer is YOU don’t. This is a simple question you must ask the signer. Here is an example of how to ask about the signer's preference:
“ This document requires a jurat, which requires I take an oath or affirmation from you. An oath requires you to swear to God, and an Affirmation requires you to swear to yourself or your honor. Do you have a preference for one or the other?”
In my experience, most signers don’t have a problem swearing to God in the oath but asking could avoid an uncomfortable situation.
**Please see Note from The California Leauge of Independent Notaries re: Taking an oath from a Credible Witness(s)**
An oath or affirmation is a solemn promise, often invoking a divine witness, regarding the truthfulness of one's statement or action. There are two common instances you will encounter as a Notary Public where you will be required to administer an oath or affirmation. Below are acceptable examples of oaths and affirmations that you may use when using credible witnesses to identify a signer and when completing a Jurat.
When the signer has no acceptable forms of identification, and it would be very difficult or impossible for the signer to obtain an acceptable identification document, the signer's identity may be established by the oaths of two credible witnesses who know the signer personally. (CA Civ Code section 1185(b)(2).)
After the notary public has verified the identity of both credible witnesses, the notary public must administer an oath or affirmation to each credible witness who is establishing the signer's identity. Under penalty of perjury, each credible witness must swear or affirm that the following statement is true:
"Do you solemnly swear or affirm that (signer's name) is the person named in the document; you personally know (signer's name); you reasonably believe that the circumstances of (signer's name) are such that it would be very difficult or impossible for (signer's name) to obtain an acceptable form of identification; that (signer's name) does not possess any of the identification documents authorized by law to establish their identity; and that you do not have a financial interest in the document and you are not named in the document?"
You must also record in your journal when giving an oath or affirmation to a credible witness.
A notary public must always administer an oath or affirmation before completing a Jurat. (CA Gov Code section 8202(a).) There is no prescribed wording for the oath or affirmation administered by the Notary Public in the state of California for a Jurat; however, two examples of an acceptable oath or affirmation would be:
"Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the contents of this document are the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God;" or
"Do you solemnly swear or affirm, under penalty of perjury, that the contents of this document are the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?"
You must record in your journal when giving an oath or affirmation for every Jurat completed.
It is customary for a Notary to ask the oath-taker or affirmant to raise their right hand in a pledging gesture. Oaths and affirmations should always be taken seriously by the Notary and the person being sworn or affirmed as both are legally binding promises to tell the truth, and subject the oath-taker or affirmant to penalties of perjury.
California Notaries:
When completing a Jurat in California, no matter where the Jurat is going, or the document is being filed, you must use a California-compliant Jurat notarization form. We learned last week that we could use any state's version of an Acknowledgment if the document is going out of state. But with Jurats, that's not the case.
See the two images below. One is the Jurat from the California Secretary of State, and the other from the National Notary Association. The discovery box at the top and the format of the California Jurat is required to administer and notarize the document.
NNA Jurat
California Secretary of State Jurat
Do you have a notarization form and can’t tell if it's an Acknowledgment or a Jurat? Look for the language. Generally, an Acknowledgment certificate will contain the words “acknowledged before me” or similar wording. Jurat certificates will contain the words “subscribed and sworn to (or affirmed) before me.”
This second blog post in my Master Your Notary Knowledge series will help you grow and master your craft. As a Notary, we never stop learning. If you are a new Notary or have been in the business for a while now, you’ll never be done mastering your Notary craft. Thank you for hanging out with me, and I hope you learned something new today.
Until Next Time-
Jennifer K. Cooper- JKC Mobile Notary.
