State of Vermont

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Office of the Secretary of State

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Responsibilities of a Notary Public

There are a variety of duties that may be performed by a notary public in Vermont. You may take acknowledgments, administer oaths and affirmations, certify that a document is a true copy, notarize affidavits and depositions and issue protests under seal. Each of these responsibilities is treated separately in these pages.

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgment means to admit, affirm, declare, testify, avow, confess or own as genuine.

Notaries acting in their capacity as notaries do not acknowledge; they take acknowledgments, meaning that they certify that an individual has acknowledged that an act of signing a document is his or her free act and deed.

The most common form of acknowledgment occurs during the conveyance of property. Deeds and other conveyances of land, or of an estate or interest in land, must be signed by the party granting the interest and by one or more witnesses, and must be acknowledged by the grantor before a town clerk, notary public, master, county clerk or judge or register of probate, and recorded at length in the clerk's office of the town in which the lands lie.

Acknowledgments of this type before a notary public do not require that a notary seal be affixed to the notary's signature. 27 V.S.A. §341.

The same procedural steps are required for a deed of bargain and sale, a mortgage or other conveyance of land in fee simple or for term of life, or a lease for more than one year from the date of the making of the lease. 27 V.S.A. §342.

The same process also applies to mortgages by deed of machinery attached to or used in a shop, mill, quarry, mine, printing office or factory. 27 V.S.A. §441.

Any document may be acknowledged, but many do not require acknowledgment. Among these are wills, which are attested to by three or more credible witnesses in the presence of the testator and of each other. 14 V.S.A. §5.

Similarly, corporate charters are not required under Vermont law to be acknowledged.

While Vermont law does not presently establish a particular form for acknowledgment, the following is offered as typical:

STATE OF ____________ )
COUNTY OF ____________ )

On this ____ day of ________, 19____, before me personally appeared (name of person acknowledging) to me known to be the person who executed the foregoing instrument, and (he/she) thereupon duly acknowledged to me that (he/she) executed the same to be (his/her) free act and deed.

(Notary signs and, in certain cases, seals here)

NEXT: Oaths and Affirmations