In an earlier post, I talked about how Notaries identify signers. You can read that post here. This year, there have been some changes to what forms of ID can be used by Notaries to identify signers of documents. The forms of ID now acceptable to use are:
1 Identification card or driver’s license from State of California;
2 US Passport;
3 An ID card or driver’s license from another state or by a an Canadian or Mexican public agency authorized to issue Drivers Licenses;
4 An employee id card issued by an agency or office of the State of California or an agency or office of a city, county, or city and county in California;
(And new this year, a Notary can use)
5. A tribal identification card from a federally recognized tribal government;
6. A consular identification card and a foreign passport without further qualification;
7. Any form of ID issued by a sheriff's department that is current or has been issued in the past 5 years for a prisoner in custody in a county jail or local detention facility.
If the signer does not have one of the above IDs that is valid, there still is a way they can be identified for purposes of a notarization. It's called using a Credible Witness. A signer's identity can be verified by a single Credible Witness that the notary public personally knows or by two Credible WItnesses who are not personally known to the notary public. In both of the Credible Witness situations, the notary needs to be able to identify by ID the Credible Witness(es) using the IDs listed above. No matter what, someone, the Credible Witness(es) or the signer him/herself, must have a valid ID. NO EXCEPTIONS!