California law mandates that the following form be used for notary acknowledgments (only the body of the acknowledgment is listed here):
“On _______________, before me, (here insert name and title of the officer), personally appeared ______________, who proved to me on the basis of satisfactory evidence to be the person(s) whose name(s) is/are subscribed to the within instrument and acknowledged to me that he/she/they executed the same in his/her/their authorized capacity(ies), and that by his/her/their signature(s) on the instrument the person(s), or the entity upon behalf of which the person(s) acted, executed the instrument.
I certify under PENALTY OF PERJURY under the laws of the State of California that the foregoing paragraph is true and correct.
WITNESS my hand and official seal.” (Cal. Civ. Code § 1189[a][1])
Last year, we announced changes to the notary acknowledge sections of our security instruments to make them match each state’s model language (if any; see http://www.docutechcorp.com/updates-to-security-instrument-notary-language).
For Cx471, in order to streamline the acknowledgment process for the notary, rather than leaving a blank line and the caption “(here insert name and title of the officer)” at the beginning of the acknowledgment, we replaced it with “[field], a Notary Public in and for the said state.”
While we believe this change to be compliant, particularly when California case rulings are applied to Ibid. (see Favello v. Bank of Am. Nat’l Trust & Sav. Ass’n, 74 P.2d 1057, 1059 [Cal. Ct. App. 1938]), we will nevertheless be changing this phrase back to the blank line and caption, in order to provide more flexibility for cases where someone other than a notary public acknowledges the instrument (e.g. an Armed Forces officer), as well as to mitigate any disputes which county recorders may have over the language.
This change will take effect immediately. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact Client Support at 1.800.497.3584.
July 31, 2014
DR 155549