Begun and held at the City of Washington on Tuesday,
the fifth day of January, two thousand and ten
An Act
To require any Federal or State court to recognize any notarization made by a notary public licensed by a State other than the State where the court is located when such notarization occurs in or affects interstate commerce.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ‘Interstate Recognition of Notarizations Act of 2010’.
SEC. 2. RECOGNITION OF NOTARIZATIONS IN FEDERAL COURTS.
Each Federal court shall recognize any lawful notarization made by a notary public licensed or commissioned under the laws of a State other than the State where the Federal court is located if–
(1) such notarization occurs in or affects interstate commerce; and
(2)(A) a seal of office, as symbol of the notary public’s authority, is used in the notarization; or
(B) in the case of an electronic record, the seal information is securely attached to, or logically associated with, the electronic record so as to render the record tamper-resistant.
SEC. 3. RECOGNITION OF NOTARIZATIONS IN STATE COURTS.
Each court that operates under the jurisdiction of a State shall recognize any lawful notarization made by a notary public licensed or commissioned under the laws of a State other than the State where the court is located if–
(1) such notarization occurs in or affects interstate commerce; and
(2)(A) a seal of office, as symbol of the notary public’s authority, is used in the notarization; or
(B) in the case of an electronic record, the seal information is securely attached to, or logically associated with, the electronic record so as to render the record tamper-resistant.
SEC. 4. DEFINITIONS.
In this Act:
(1) ELECTRONIC RECORD- The term ‘electronic record’ has the meaning given that term in section 106 of the Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act (15 U.S.C. 7006).
(2) LOGICALLY ASSOCIATED WITH- Seal information is ‘logically associated with’ an electronic record if the seal information is securely bound to the electronic record in such a manner as to make it impracticable to falsify or alter, without detection, either the record or the seal information.
Speaker of the House of Representatives.
Vice President of the United States and President of the Senate.
WooHoo! I tell you what…EVERY State needs to follow by this example!
Banks Oppose ‘Access To Justice In Lending Act’? Well, Let’s See What It Provides
Submitted by Steven Meyerowitz on Fri, 07/09/2010 – 9:06am
A rose by any other name may smell as sweet, Juliet says. A nice thought for the theatre, but perhaps not for the law. A New York bill that has passed both houses of the state legislature is called the “Access To Justice In Lending Act.” And the New York Bankers Association opposes it. What?
The bill governs a mortgagor’s right to recover attorneys’ fees in foreclosure actions. It provides that whenever a residential mortgage provides that in any action to foreclose, the mortgagee may recover attorneys’ fees and/or expenses, “there shall be implied in such mortgage a covenant by the mortgagee to pay to the mortgagor the reasonable attorneys’ fees and/or expenses incurred by the mortgagor . . . in the successful defense of any action or proceeding commenced by the mortgagee against the mortgagor arising out of the contract.” Translation: a borrower can recover attorneys’ fees if a lender’s foreclosure action fails.
The bank group, represented by the Wilson Elser law firm, opposes the bill, declaring that it “would create a new implication in any contract that provided attorneys’ fees and costs to foreclosing parties a right for the party being foreclosed on to also collect attorneys’ fees and costs if he or she is successful.” In its view, the legislation “is unconstitutional on its face as applied to existing mortgages, is unnecessary and would create uncertainty in the foreclosure process.”
The Wilson Elser letter adds that the bill “is so broadly drafted that it could give defendants in foreclosure actions the right to attorneys’ fees even where a mortgagee would have no such rights…. In typical foreclosure actions in New York, foreclosure notices may be filed three, four, five or even more times without a foreclosure being actually completed. If a mortgagor elected to hire an attorney and then brought his or her mortgage up to date by paying off arrears, this legislation would provide the mortgagor with the right unfairly to collect attorneys’ fees for those uncompleted actions.”
We’ll keep you up-to-date on the status of this legislation as developments warrant.
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