{"id":3032,"date":"2012-02-17T10:04:23","date_gmt":"2012-02-17T16:04:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tsl.texas.gov\/slrm\/blog\/?p=3032"},"modified":"2025-02-13T08:46:45","modified_gmt":"2025-02-13T14:46:45","slug":"faq-who-owns-a-notary-publics-records","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tsl.texas.gov\/slrm\/blog\/2012\/02\/faq-who-owns-a-notary-publics-records\/","title":{"rendered":"FAQ: Who owns a notary public’s records?"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Angela Ossar, Government Information Analyst<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"notary

Notary Book<\/p><\/div>\n

A local government was doing a records inventory recently and emailed me about notary public books. The question was: “We have a notary on staff. We pay for the notary fee (new and renewal) because it is essential to the employee’s duties. Will the notary’s records be considered part of the company or are they the personal property of the notary?”<\/strong><\/p>\n

I assume that the answer is screamingly obvious to any notaries public reading this. For one thing, the Secretary of State publishes a comprehensive FAQ<\/a> for notaries public.  However, it might not be so obvious to records managers who want to make sure that they are inventorying and scheduling all of their agency’s records.<\/p>\n

Answer<\/h2>\n

The notary book belongs to the notary public.  The Secretary of State says it best:<\/p>\n

The employer is not the owner of a notary\u2019s record book or seal, even if the employer paid for the materials.  Tex. Atty. Gen. Op. GA-0723.  A Texas notary public is required by law to maintain a record book containing information on every notarization performed and is required to authenticate every official act with the seal of office. The record book is public information and a notary is required to produce copies of the book upon request. Therefore, the book and seal should remain in the possession of the notary at all times.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Attorney General Opinion cited above may be found on the Attorney General’s website here<\/a>. For more information on the records of notaries public, consult the Secretary of State. As their FAQ says, “Texas notaries public are governed by Chapter 406 of the Government Code<\/a>, Chapter 121 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code<\/a> and the secretary of state\u2019s administrative rules found in 1 Texas Administrative Code Chapter 87<\/a>, as well as any other applicable state or federal law.”<\/p>\n

The retention period for the notary book (Acknowledgement Record) is 10 years according to Local Schedules CC<\/a> and DC<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\r\n \r\n \"Like\r\n <\/a>\r\n <\/span>\r\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Angela Ossar, Government Information Analyst A local government was doing a records inventory recently and emailed me about notary public books. The question was: “We have a notary on staff. We pay for the notary fee (new and renewal) because it is essential to the employee’s duties. Will the notary’s records be considered part…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"no","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[6,57,7],"class_list":["post-3032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tips","tag-local","tag-retention","tag-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tsl.texas.gov\/slrm\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tsl.texas.gov\/slrm\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tsl.texas.gov\/slrm\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tsl.texas.gov\/slrm\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/54"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tsl.texas.gov\/slrm\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3032"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/www.tsl.texas.gov\/slrm\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3032\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21676,"href":"https:\/\/www.tsl.texas.gov\/slrm\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3032\/revisions\/21676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tsl.texas.gov\/slrm\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tsl.texas.gov\/slrm\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tsl.texas.gov\/slrm\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}