[Code of Federal Regulations]
[Title 22, Volume 1]
[Revised as of April 1, 2005]
From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access
[CITE: 22CFR92.31]

[Page 380-381]
 
                       TITLE 22--FOREIGN RELATIONS
 
                     CHAPTER I--DEPARTMENT OF STATE
 
PART 92_NOTARIAL AND RELATED SERVICES--Table of Contents
 
Sec. 92.31  Taking an acknowledgment.

    (a) Officers' assurance of acceptability of notarial act. A 
notarizing officer taking an acknowledgment should, if possible, 
ascertain the requirements of the jurisdiction in which the acknowledged 
document is to be used and execute the certificate in accordance with 
those requirements. Not all States or Territories will accept 
certificates of acknowledgment executed by notarizing officers other 
than consuls. Therefore, notarizing officers and consular agents who are 
called upon to perform this notarial act should consult the applicable 
State or territorial law to ascertain whether certificates of 
acknowledgment will be acceptable. (See Sec. 92.5 regarding 
acceptability of consular notarial acts under state or territorial law.) 
Furthermore, public policy generally forbids that the act of taking and 
certifying an acknowledgment be performed by a person financially or 
beneficially interested in the transaction to which the acknowledged 
document relates. Notarizing officers should keep this point in mind, 
especially in connection with acknowledgments by members of their 
families.
    (b) Personal appearance of grantor(s). A notarizing officer taking 
an acknowledgment should always require the personal appearance of the 
grantor(s), i.e., the person or persons who have signed the instrument 
to be acknowledged. Since the officer states in his certificate that the 
parties did personally appear before him, failure to observe this 
requirement invalidates the notarial act and makes the officer liable to 
the charge of negligence and of having executed a false certificate. A 
notarizing officer should never take an acknowledgment by telephone.
    (c) Satisfactory identification of grantor(s). The notarizing 
officer must be certain of the identity of the parties making an 
acknowledgment. If he is not personally acquainted with the parties, he 
should require from each some evidence of identity, such as a passport, 
police identity card, or the like. The laws of some States and 
Territories require that the identity of an acknowledger be proved by 
the oath of one or more ``credible witnesses'', and that a statement 
regarding the proving of identity in this manner be included in the 
certificate of acknowledgment. (See Sec. 92.32(b) regarding forms of 
certificates of acknowledgment generally.) Mere introduction of a person 
not known to the notarizing officer, without further proof of identity, 
is

[[Page 381]]

not considered adequate identification for acknowledgment purposes.
    (d) Explanation of contents of instrument. The notarizing officer 
must assure himself that the person acknowledging an instrument 
understands the nature of the instrument. If the person does not 
understand it, the officer is legally and morally bound to explain the 
instrument in such a way as to make the person who has signed it realize 
the character and effect of his act. This duty is particularly important 
where the signer of a document has little or no knowledge of the 
language in which the document is written.
    (e) Acknowledgments of married women. Some of the States still 
require that a married woman who has executed an instrument of 
conveyance jointly with her husband be examined separately by the 
notarizing officer at the time the acknowledgments of the couple are 
taken. Notarizing officers should consult the applicable statutory 
provisions before taking the acknowledgments of a husband and wife to a 
document which they have both executed.

[22 FR 10858, Dec. 27, 1957, as amended at 60 FR 51722 and 51723, Oct. 
3, 1995]