James W. Adams, Jr., on the Importance of Acknowledgment Certificates and Acknowledgment Law
Acknowledgments are critically important to commercial law as they affect every legal transaction requiring an attested signature, especially instruments touching land or touching the rights incident to land ownership. James W. Adams, Jr. discusses what an acknowledgment is, the documents that require acknowledgment, and the elements of a legal acknowledgment. He writes:
Real estate documents are not the only instruments which must be acknowledged. Certain contracts are required to be acknowledged in order to be valid, as are certain bills of sale, articles of banks and trust companies, election documents, consents to marriage, assumed name certificates, and many more instruments in various areas of law.
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Generally speaking, a certificate of acknowledgment should contain the following elements:
1. the seal of the notary officer and the certificate is often fatally defective if the seal is not present;
2. the signature of the notary officer and the certificate is usually fatally defective if the signature is not present);
3. the recital of the official capacity of the notary and the certificate is often fatally defective if such is not present);
4. the recital of venue showing the forum state and the certificate is often fatally defective if such is not present . . . .
. . . [S]tatutes purporting to validate and “cure” the records of certain counties, or in certain states ought to be viewed with a skeptical eye. Many such acts contain prerequisites to “curing,” such as: the instrument and acknowledgment in question must have been recorded for 10 years (or more) and that no “adverse claim” could have been asserted during that time. An acknowledgment wholly void for failure to comply with statutory requirements is generally not validated by a curative law.
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