Remote Online Notarizations (RON) is a new and convenient way to get documents notarized. RON allows the notary and signer(s) to be in different places. This makes it an appealing option during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Remote Online Notarization is a great option for many types of documents. Not all documents may be allowed to be notarized remotely. Most county recording offices don’t accept RON for recorded documents such as mortgages, deeds, etc. As a result we don’t typically do many RONs for real estate transactions.
Wills are another document we don’t typically notarize using RON. Many states have restrictions on whether they accept RON for a will.
Remote Online Notarizations may not be the best option for everyone. RON signers should have experience with computers and internet services such as Zoom. RON will not be the best option for people who are not comfortable with technology.
One of the fundamental aspects of RON is Knowledge Based Authentication (KBA) to assist in verifying a signers identity. Signers must remember and answer questions about their history. Questions may be related to former addresses, names, loans or accounts opened.
You need to answer questions within a limited amount of time to establish your identity. If you fail to answer the KBA questions correctly within two minutes you will get a second try. If you fail to answer correctly a second time then we won’t be able to proceed with the notarization.