Temporary appointment in unserved towns
- Section 1 authorizes judges of First Instance to appoint temporary notaries when the area lacks residents with the required qualifications.
- Section 1 limits the basis for temporary appointment to the condition that no persons reside meeting the qualifications.
- Section 1 requires that temporary appointees possess desirable qualifications specifically as to ability and morality.
Effect on existing notaries lacking qualifications
- Section 2 provides that all notaries public at present commissioned who do not have the qualifications in Section 1 shall ipso facto cease to hold office.
- Section 2 requires those notaries to proceed with respect to their notarial books or records, documents and instruments in their possession in the same manner as if their commission had expired.
- Section 2 treats the cessation as occurring automatically by operation of law (ipso facto) upon non-compliance with the qualification requirements.
Duties in the notarial register
- Section 3 amends Section eighty-seven of Act Numbered One hundred and thirty-six so that the notary public must enter in the register in chronological order:
- The nature of each instrument executed, sworn to, or acknowledged;
- The person executing, swearing to, or acknowledging the instrument;
- The witnesses, if any, to the signature;
- The date of execution, oath, or acknowledgment;
- The fees collected by the notary for the notary’s services in connection with the instrument.
- Section 3 requires that when the instrument is a contract, the notary must keep a correct copy as part of the notary’s records.
- Section 3 requires the notary to record in the register a brief description of the substance of each instrument and to assign each entry a consecutive number, beginning with number one in each calendar year.
- Section 3 mandates that the notary must:
- Give each instrument a number corresponding to its entry in the register; and
- State on the instrument the page or pages of the register where it is recorded.
- Section 3 prohibits structural gaps by requiring no blank line between entries.
- Section 3 requires weekly certification in the register:
- At the end of each week, the notary must certify the number of instruments executed, sworn to, or acknowledged; and
- If none were executed, sworn to, or acknowledged, that fact must appear in the certificate.
- Section 3 governs register book supply and pagination:
- The register must be kept in books furnished by the Attorney-General to any notary public upon request and upon payment of the actual cost; and
- The register must be duly paged, and on the first page the Attorney-General must certify the number of pages the book consists of.
Repeal and effectivity
- Section 4 repeals all and each of the Acts inconsistent with the provisions of this Act.
- Section 5 provides that the Act shall take effect on July first, nineteen hundred and fourteen.