UT House Bill 200

Legislation

State: Utah
Signed: March 12, 2007

Effective: July 01, 2007
Chapter: 147

Summary

House Bill 200 introduces several new formatting requirements for recordable instruments that will have an impact on the practice of Notaries.

Affects

Amends Section 17-21-20 of the Utah Code Annotated.

Changes

Effective July 1, 2007, requires a document submitted to a county recorder for recording to: (a) be an original or certified copy; (b) be in English or be accompanied by an accurate English translation; (c) contain a brief title or heading on the first page stating the nature of the document; (d) contain the legal description of the property that is the subject of the document (e) contain the name of the person printed or typed underneath the person’s signature (UCA 17-21-25) and the grantee’s mailing address (UCA 57-3-105(1) & (2); (f) be notarized with a legible Notary stamp or seal; and (f) have original signatures.
Effective September 1, 2007, permits a county recorder, after 3 months of public notice, to require documents to: (1) be on white paper that is 8½” by 11”; (2) have side and bottom margins of 1”; (3) contain a space of 2½” down and 4½” across the upper right corner of the first page and a margin of 1” at the top of each succeeding page; (4) not be on sheets of paper that are continuously bound together; (5) not contain printed material on more than one side of each page; (6) be printed in black ink and not have text smaller than seven lines of text per vertical inch; and (7) be sufficiently legible to make certified copies.
Exempts the following documents from the new formatting requirements: (a) a map; (b) a certificate or affidavit of death; (c) a military discharge; (d) a document regarding taxes that is issued by the Internal Revenue Service; (e) a document submitted for recording that has been filed with a court and conforms to the formatting requirements established by the court; or (f) a document submitted for recording that is in a form required by law.

Analysis

House Bill 200 introduces several new formatting requirements for recordable instruments that will have an impact on the practice of Notaries. Notaries must be sure that the notarization is complete on these documents and that the imprints of their seals are legible. Their handwriting must be legible enough to produce a clean certified copy. They must ensure that all notarial certificate wording appears on one side of a document. In addition, if a county recorder chooses, new subsection 3 introduces important formatting requirements specifying the size, margins, and typeface size of documents. These additional formatting requirements could affect the appearance of any “loose” notarial certificate a Notary uses. Prudent Utah Notaries should operate on the assumption that the new rules are in effect in every Utah county. While a number of documents are exempted from these new requirements, virtually any real property document that Notaries routinely handle, including deeds of trust, mortgages and conveyance deeds, are not.

Read House Bill 200.