CA Assembly Bill 2062

Legislation

State: California
Signed: September 15, 2004

Effective: January 01, 2005
Chapter: 539

Summary

Assembly Bill 2062 delays by six months the date when the new mandatory education law for Notary commission applicants takes effect, requires Notaries to identify signers whenever a jurat is performed and prescribes a statutory form Notaries must complete when performing a jurat.

Affects

Amends Sections 8201 and 8206 of and adds Section 8202 to the California Government Code.

Changes

Postpones from Jan.1 to July 1, 2005, the commencement date for implementation of the new mandatory education requirement for Notary commission applicants (enacted last year).
Creates a new Government Code Section 8202 requiring Notaries executing jurats to identify each signer through personal knowledge or satisfactory evidence – the same as for acknowledgments (Civil Code Sec. 1185).
Creates a new statutory jurat certificate specifying how the signer was identified.
Requires the Notary to record in the journal the character of each document sworn to or affirmed and the method of identifying the signer. (Previously, the law had only expressly required this for acknowledgments.)

Analysis

Assembly Bill 2062 delays by six months the date when the new mandatory education law for Notary commission applicants takes effect. The reason for the delay is the Secretary of State’s need for additional time to create and implement administrative rules for course providers. As a result of this law, every person submitting a Notary commission application on or after July 1, 2005, must already have taken and passed the six-hour course at least once. (The course may be taken as soon as the Secretary of State starts approving course providers, likely beginning shortly after January 1, 2005.) Renewing Notaries who have taken the six-hour course at least once must still take a three-hour refresher course. California’s new statutory jurat certificate becomes only the second one in the nation (after Florida’s) to specify how the signer was identified. The new law also corrects a technical flaw in Government Code Section 8206 that required certain information (e.g., “character of every instrument”) to be entered for acknowledged documents but not for sworn documents.

Read Assembly Bill 2062.