The two most often performed duties of notary are taking an acknowledgement and administering jurats. When a client is required to have a document notarized, that document will usually require a notary to either complete an acknowledgement or administer a jurat. The notary will know which is required because the document to be notarized will usually have the indication or the signer may already know. Interesting enough, notary is not allowed to select which act is performed because to do so may place the notary in a position of illegally practicing law.



When client brings a document to a notary, if the proper verbiage is not preprinted on the form indicating which notary act to perform, the notary will ask the client which notary act he or she requires. If the client does not know, then the notary is to require the client to obtain an answer from the originators of the document.

In the acknowledgement form, the notary public certifies: 1) that the signer personally appeared before the notary public at the time of notary request and in the county indicated; 2) the identity of the signer; and 3) that the signer acknowledged executing the document.



In the jurat form, the notary public certifies: 1) that the signer personally appeared before the notary pubic on the date indicated and in the county indicated; 2) that the signer signed the document in the presence of the notary public; 3) that the notary public administered the oath or affirmation; and 4) the identity of the signer. Key wording of a jurat is “Subscribed and sworn to (or affirmed) before me”.



The distinction between jurats and acknowledgements is the following:

The essential purpose of a jurat (and distinction) is that the signer must swear an oath or affirmation that the contents of the document are true. Another distinction is that a document requiring a jurat may only be signed in front of a notary. If the document was signed beforehand, it must be re-signed at the time of notarization.  And the last distinction, unlike acknowledgements, all jurats completed in California must have California verbiage without regard to where they will be recorded.