For many important documents, it is not enough just to fill out and sign them correctly. An additional statement is required to authenticate that the signatures belong to those indicated in the paper. Not just anyone can give such confirmation of authenticity. You have to go to a professional—a qualified notary who will fill out and sign a notary acknowledgment form.
In South Carolina, this confirmation is required for mortgages, deeds, living trusts, and other documents. In principle, you can certify any document in this way. This will serve as additional insurance in case someone wants to challenge the authenticity of the signatures on the printable notary form.
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There are specific rules for notaries providing this service and guidelines to notarize a document in South Carolina. We will tell you about all this below.
If you’re wondering what an acknowledgment should look like, you can refer to § 26-3-70 of the South Carolina Code of Laws. This section provides short forms that you can and should use. However, other wordings are also permitted.
There are different forms for:
South Carolina has a set of rules and advice for notaries called the Notary Public Online Manual. This handbook is released by the South Carolina Secretary of State’s Office.
The document contains:
If you do not have your notary yet, you can easily find someone who is nearby. For this, there is no need to buy newspapers and look for ads. You can use a simple Internet search and use this website with Private Notarial Services.
Besides this, notaries in South Carolina are located in the following locations:
It is recommended to verify a notary before receiving their services. With the use of modern resources, this is again very easy to do. You need to visit the South Carolina Secretary of State webpage. There you can use Notary Search.
Search for the first or last name of the specialist and get the results in a table. It shows the most suitable notaries for the request, indicates the County in which they are located, and commission expiration dates.
Unlike many other states, remote notarization is not yet an available option in South Carolina. The good news is that an act to this effect has already been submitted (SB486) and is currently in the House Committee on Judiciary. So we expect the adoption of online notarization soon.
From the experience of other states, we can say that this will make life much easier, especially for companies where constant document flow requires notarization of papers. With the online option, it will be enough to have access to a special platform and a computer with the ability to play and record audio and video. You can even be out of state and country to get your document certified.
To work with online platforms, notaries will have to undergo special training. But again, referring to the existing experience, we can note that this does not take much time.
Let’s move on to the most practical part of our article. We will tell you how by following simple steps, you can notarize any document in South Carolina.
Find someone you can trust. You can contact your friends or use the search methods that we have discussed above.
All documents must be pre-filled and submitted to a notary for examination. You can provide already signed papers or sign in the presence of a notary.
Also, find out if there are any fees for the certification of your papers. There may be different amounts of payments for different forms.
The notary must make sure that you are the person who signed the document. To do this, you can show your document issued by the government—with your signature and photograph (for instance, a passport). If this is not possible, you can take two witnesses with you, or one if they are well known to the notary and there are no questions about their personality.
Sign the document in front of a notary. If you have brought already-signed documents, then the notary will examine the authenticity of the signature.
If all is well, the notary will fill in an acknowledgment, write there their name, title, date, and sign. After that, they will return all papers to you.