Notarial Acts and Allowable Actions a Notary May Perform
This domain tests whether you can identify the acts a Maryland notary public may lawfully perform and where the limits lie. Exam scenarios often ask you to choose the correct response when a signer requests something slightly outside a notary’s authority.
Core authority
A Maryland notary may administer oaths and affirmations, take acknowledgments, take jurats (including affidavits), certify copies of certain documents, and perform other notarial acts authorized by Maryland law. For each act, the signer must appear personally before the notary-or, for remote online notarization, through an approved RON platform-and the notary must establish identity, willingness, and competence. The notary completes the certificate, signs, dates, and applies the official stamp.
Limits
A notary is not a lawyer and may not explain a document’s legal effect, choose a certificate type for the parties, or advise on consequences. A notary may not notarize the notary’s own signature or a document in which the notary is a party or has a direct beneficial interest. Copy certification is limited: the notary must have the original to compare, and should refuse public records such as birth, death, or marriage certificates and recorded land instruments, directing the requestor to the custodian.
Worked example
A signer brings an original diploma and a photocopy and asks for a certified copy. The notary compares the documents, confirms they are identical, and completes a copy-certification certificate with signature, date, and stamp. If the document were a birth certificate, the notary would decline because vital records are certified by the state custodian, not by a notary.
Traps
The biggest traps are notarizing without personal appearance, using an expired commission, notarizing an incomplete document, and treating a jurat like an acknowledgment. In a jurat the signer swears to the truth of the contents; in an acknowledgment the signer acknowledges execution. Do not sign as notary before the signer appears.