New York State Remote Online Notary (RON)
Responsible RON Guidance for New York State
*All blogs are for informational purposes only and are not to be used as legal advice*
remote online notary in New York State
I wanted to talk briefly about remote online notary in New York State because it is New to New York State. When Governor Cuomo was in office he allowed remote online notary, I think it was a via through executive order, and since then Hochul has reintroduced it, it is a law now and New York State traditional notaries, should they register to become a remote online notary, can do notarial acts via the internet. According to the national lottery association, once they’ve gone through the process of becoming a RON through the state some of the platforms they can use are Blue Notary, DocuSign, Doc Verify, Notarize, Notary Cam, Havasu, Safe Docs and Signix.
(Side Note: New York does not provide a list of approved vendors)
Applying for RON will void your Old License Number
Notary RON, also known as, Remote Online Notary, is here in New York, so what’s next? The traditional notary will have to apply with New York State, pay the fees, get a new license number, which will void their old license number. You cannot use the same license number, you cannot use two numbers to do notarial acts. It’s one or the other, it’s your old number as a traditional notary that does things face-to-face or it’s your new number as a RON. Now with the new number you can do face-to-face and you can do RON once you’re completely RON certified. So, apply, get the new number, get your new stamp so you can do face-to-face notarizations, get your digital stamp, get your digital signature, and then domock signing. I learn that from my notary Robin we were talking today on the phone about this and that’s going to take a little bit of time when you’re a traditional notary. It’ll put your work on pause, if you’re a traditional notary and you’re in this mobile notary business, it’ll put your work on pause.
The Legal Process of Remote Online Notary
Now for Robin, she’s on pause, she’s our guinea pig, so thank you Robin for jumping out the gate for a little while on my platform, because the state is not using the same system to let the counties know… “Robin from BKNYC Mobile Notary has a new commission number, and this is her commission number, so if she does anything, like an ink signature, face-to-face signature with a client and her signature needs to be certified through the county, at least in Kings county it won’t be able to be certified. I checked, Friday will make two weeks ago that I was at the county clerk’s office, they said there was a meeting with the state and the counties and nothing was resolved. So, until those things are resolved, I have one of my notaries going through the process and thank you again for being the guinea pig, but she’s also on pause on my platform. Because if a signature needs to be certified for apostille work and you go to the county or we go to the county and we’re not able to do that, I just feel like it’s putting added stress and added cost on our clients and our notaries. Now I’m not sure if there’s a workaround, I’m going to talk to the state again, I’m going to call the state and say “hey are we able to certify the signature of the notary if we go through this state directly” and see what happens but until I know something and Robin knows a little bit more about what’s going on with ROA, we aren’t going to be doing RON. You want to introduce new technologies, but you don’t necessarily want to be the first out of the gate because there’s a lot more kinks to work out, there’s bug fixes, you see that with new apps at all the time. So that’s what’s going on with RON at the counties and state.
What Remote Online Notarization Means for Clients
Now for client side, depending on your market, if you’re booking with the RON here in New York State, one thing we are allowed to do is charge up to $25 per notarial act in one particular session. So, if you have a document that has 10 notary signatures and 10 stamps that are needed, that’s 25 dollars per notarial act, that’s $250. We as notaries need to hold on to that digital signing somewhere in the internet verse, maybe through these platforms for 10 years and have access to them. So, the cost may be more significant than some of our signers would hope. I think it’s relevant, it’s a lot more things that the notary has to do to ensure the safety of these digital signings, and who you, are it’s a lot more work. It may cost a little bit more money on your side. So, depending if you’re a notary, depending on what county you are in, or if you’re already applied to be a remote online notary, check with your county to see what’s going on with being able to certify your signature in the system.
BKNYC Mobile Notary Provides Responsible Signing Services
BKCNY Mobile Notary has many licensed loan signing agents on call that can assist you with different types of signing services. We are licensed and bonded to cover all five boroughs of NYC including Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, The Bronx and Staten Island.
For more information, contact us at (917) 792-9339 or click here to book a signing appointment.
