Posted by Gerry_VT
on November 20, 2008, 9:20 am, in reply to "Re: Non-CA acks and personal knowledge"
24.63.243.7
For Craig / CA: an impractical point: please consider the whole phrase in the VT suggested acknowledgement: "to me known to be the person who executed the foregoing instrument". According to the phrase, all I know about the person is that he executed the document. It does not say I have personal knowledge of his identity. The only place a form of "personal" occurrs is in the phrase "personally appeared".
A somewhat more practical point: each state has the power to give duties to various officials. California chose to give the authority to extablish identity through personal knowledge to credible witnesses, and the authority to establish identity through a wide range of documents to the DMV. Vermont chose to give that authority to notaries. The constitution requires that "full faith and credit shall be given in each state to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other state." California has to respect the authority that Vermont gives to its notaries.
Notaries in other states cannot use California certificates because California law requres the phrase "State of California" to appear in the certificate.
I imagine that in practice, officials who record deeds don't have time to evaluate the precise meaning of every out-of-state acknowledgement they see. I would expect that some of them will accept all the out-of-state certificates they see unless there is an obvious error (like a missing name). Some of them will reject every out-of-state acknowledgement, which of course is both illegal an unconstitutional.