[Code of Federal Regulations]

[Title 22, Volume 1]

[Revised as of April 1, 2006]

From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access

[CITE: 22CFR92.31]



[Page 368-369]

 

                       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 369]]



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]