Expired License, Church Acquaintance, and a Son Who Wants to Vouch
A signing service sends Marcus to a notary for a quitclaim deed. Marcus's driver's license expired four months ago; he offers a warehouse-club membership card, a photocopy of his passport (the original is in a safe deposit box in another city), and an expired student ID. Marcus says he and the notary attend the same church and have chatted at coffee hour several times, and asks her to just use personal knowledge. Twenty minutes later a second signer, Elena, arrives to sign the same deed. She has no identification at all, but her adult son, who drove her, has a valid license and is willing to vouch for her. Elena's son is also named as a grantee on the deed. The signing service instructions read: if ID is a problem, just note it in the journal and proceed.
1. Evaluate the notary's claim of personal knowledge for Marcus and each document he offered.
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Personal knowledge means the notary knows the signer through dealings sufficient that she has no reasonable doubt about identity - not that the signer looks familiar. A handful of coffee-hour conversations over years usually falls short, and the notary cannot manufacture certainty because the signer is friendly and time is short. If her state permits personal knowledge, the basis must be documented in the journal (for example: known as a fellow congregant since 2019, introduced by name, recognized without prompting). A vague note is worse than none.
The documents are inadequate on their face. An expired license is not current identification. A warehouse-club membership card is not a government-issued photo identification and may not even bear a photograph. A photocopy of a passport cannot be examined for security features, and the original being elsewhere is not an exception the statute recognizes. An expired student ID is expired and often lacks a physical description.
Her options, in order: a current government-issued photo ID bearing a photograph, physical description, and signature; a credible identifying witness who meets the statutory requirements; or declining the act until identification is produced.
2. Can Elena's son serve as a credible identifying witness for her? What are the requirements, and what should the notary do?
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Generally a credible witness must be personally known to the notary or present satisfactory identification of their own, must take an oath or affirmation, and must be impartial - not a party to the transaction and without a beneficial interest in it. Elena's son is a named grantee on the very deed being signed, so he has a direct beneficial interest and is disqualified in essentially every state that allows the procedure. His being her son compounds the problem: many statutes bar relatives outright, and even where they do not, the relationship defeats the impartiality the procedure is designed to supply.
The notary should explain the disqualification to the family, then look for alternatives: identification left at home or in the car, a current passport, a disinterested friend or neighbor who knows Elena and can appear. If a qualified witness is found, the notary administers the oath, records the witness's name and address and the reason the witness was needed, and proceeds. If nothing qualifies, the notary declines and offers to reschedule.
3. How should the notary respond to the signing service instruction to note the ID problem and proceed anyway?
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She should decline to proceed on that basis and say so in writing. A signing service is a scheduling vendor; it has no authority to waive a statutory identification requirement, and its instruction describes precisely the practice a regulator would cite as failure to identify. The instruction is also self-incriminating paperwork: writing we knew the identification was deficient and proceeded converts a defensible judgment call into an admission.
If she refuses the signing, she should notify the company promptly, in writing, with a factual statement: signer presented no acceptable identification; act declined; signer advised to reschedule with current photo ID. Many states also allow or require a journal notation of a refused act, and she should record it. She can preserve the business relationship by being fast and professional about the refusal rather than by compromising the statute. If the company pressures her repeatedly, that is a signal about the company, not about the rule.