The 9:00 p.m. Video Call From Manila

Remote notarization is an exception to the personal-appearance rule, and it exists only on the terms the statute and the Secretary of State's rules set. Before the call, the notary must be able to answer yes to each of these:

1. Is remote notarization authorized for this act, and am I complying with the adopted rules? Montana permits remote notarial acts under its Revised Uniform Law on Notarial Acts and the Secretary of State's implementing rules. Those rules govern approved technology, identity proofing, recording, and retention. A notary cannot invent a compliance scheme with an unlisted vendor.
2. Is the technology approved and does it do what the rule requires? The platform must provide the required audio-video capabilities and tamper-evident recording. A consumer chat-plus-video product on a free tier is not that.
3. Is identity established by an approved method? A glared photo of a license plus two knowledge-based questions is not satisfactory identity proofing under any robust standard. Acceptable routes typically include the notary's personal knowledge, a credential examined over the AV link in adequate conditions, verification on oath of a credible witness, or approved identity-proofing technology.
4. Can the notary and signer actually communicate? Personal appearance by technology means a real-time, two-way audio-video exchange. When audio fails and the notary reverts to typed chat, the statutory substitute for presence has broken down.

Conclusion: the call fails at least three of these - unapproved platform, inadequate identity proofing, and a broken communication channel - and the missing certificate statement and missing recording compound it. The act should have been stopped, not finished.

The certificate must contain everything a paper certificate requires - the notary's name and commission identifier, jurisdiction, date, title of office, the act performed, the signer's name and any representative capacity, and the identity-verification method - plus, for a remote act, an indication that the notarial act was performed by means of communication technology. The certificate must be in electronic form and carry the notary's electronic signature and electronic seal. Devon's certificate omits the communication-technology statement, which on its face makes the act look like an in-person notarization that never happened.

The records must include the journal entry for the act and, for remote acts, the audio-video recording retained for the period the Secretary of State's rules require, in a form that can be produced on request. The recording is not optional archival clutter; it is the only contemporaneous evidence of what the notary saw and heard.

What the 24-hour retention costs:

• When the attorney asks for proof, Devon has a certificate that misdescribes the act, an unapproved platform's logs he may not control, and no recording. He cannot reconstruct the identity check or the signing.
• The burden shifts to him to explain the gap, and the natural inference is that the act was not properly performed.
• A signer or lender harmed by a later challenge has a clean claim that the notarial act cannot be substantiated.
• The vendor's retention policy is the notary's responsibility. Choosing a free tier that discards the record is a decision the notary made, and regulators and courts will treat it that way.

Location is a first-order issue, not a footnote. A notarial act is performed where the notary is located, but its effect depends on the law of the jurisdiction where the record will be used, and on whether the forum recognizes the act. A Montana notary sitting in Montana may perform a notarial act with respect to a record for a signer located elsewhere only if Montana law and the Secretary of State's rules permit it; the signer's out-of-country location also raises the question whether the place of use will recognize a Montana remote notarial act at all, and whether the transaction's own governing documents permit remote execution.

• Record the signer's location in the journal. It is a fact about the act.
• Do not assume recognition. The attorney asking for proof may be in a jurisdiction with its own requirements, its own approved-vendor list, or no remote-notarization recognition at all. The notary should not reassure anyone that the act "counts" in a forum he has not checked.
• The real-property overlay. A Montana real-estate record with a defective remote certificate is a recording and title problem, not just a notary problem.

What Devon should do now:

1. Do not create replacement records. He cannot generate a recording, cannot re-date the certificate, and cannot add the communication-technology statement to make the existing certificate look compliant after the fact.
2. Preserve everything that exists - the platform logs, the chat transcript, the electronic record, the journal entry - and put a litigation hold on it.
3. Tell the attorney the truth: what platform was used, what identity check occurred, that audio failed, and that no recording survives.
4. Offer a compliant re-execution with an approved platform, proper identity proofing, an uninterrupted AV session, a complete certificate, and retention that meets the rule.
5. Self-report to the Secretary of State and stop performing remote acts until the technology and procedures comply. A notary who discovers a defective remote practice should assume the defect is not limited to one call.