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welcome to this webinar hosted by the pennsylvania association of notaries pan we are happy to repeat today's presentation ron what you need to know about act 97 of 2020 my name is brian crocker completing the panel of pan instructors is catherine senko and john morenzel we will begin with a housekeeping video move right into the presentation and then have time for questions please do not answer your questions during the presentation and when you do please only enter your question once the webinar will last no longer than one hour we will entertain additional questions by email let's begin [Music] hi there welcome to one of pans webinars i'm glad you could join us today let's go over a few housekeeping items before we start with the presentation before we start we recommend using google chrome or mozilla firefox for your internet browser when participating in our webinars those seem to work best with connection and functionality if you don't see the chat box on the right hand side make sure you click on the three white dots in the red box that will expand the chat box onto your screen make sure when you're sending a message in the chat that you set it to send to everybody mode also if you're asking a question make sure it's set to q a mode next you will want to make sure you check out the files tab this is where we will have files available to download for you you can find the files by first making sure you click on the word file then you will click on the up arrow on the right that will expand the file tab up where you will see all the available files the same steps you just did to find the files you will follow to find the weekly icebreaker poll this is just a fun pool we like to throw together each week to get the webinar started off on the right foot you will see at the top of the chat box in yellow a sticky note with the instructor shared email address we will put this email up usually about 10 minutes after the webinar starts you can email us if your questions didn't get answered and lastly if you're having connection issues throughout the webinar we ask that you do not contact our customer service team unfortunately they cannot assist you when it comes to connection issues in the webinars what you can do though is click on the reconnect button at the top of the screen this usually resolves any lag or freezing of your screen that wraps up our housekeeping items now on to the presentation last april pennsylvania temporarily allowed remote online notarization for all notaries during the covid19 emergency and 60 days after the governor lifted the emergency declaration on october 29th act 97 amended the notary law making remote online notarization permanent in pennsylvania remote online notarization occurs when the notary is in pennsylvania and the customer is in a different location the notarization is performed using audio visu approved audio visual technology no this technology is not mandatory a notary can choose to become a ron capable notary although both involve an electronic document electronic notarization and remote online notarization are not same electronic notarization requires you demand the personal appearance of your customer when notarizing as an approved remote online notary personal appearance is accomplished when you meet with the customer remotely using approved audio visual technology before you perform remote online notarizations you must first become an electronic notary submit the application online this process is free no additional training is required you must then choose at least one vendor of approved audio visual technology purchase the technology directly from the vendor you must notify the department of state which vendor you will be using there is a list of approved vendors on the department of state's website it should be noted that skype facetime zoom and teams alone are not approved remote notarization vendors you should research the different vendors before applying to use their services the cost and use of the approved vendor vary somewhere e-closing and lender-oriented while other solutions may be better for different types of transactions the fee schedule for each approved technology differs pan has no association with any of the wrong vendor technologies we therefore cannot comment on costs of the technologies the following four conditions must be met to perform a remote online notarization the technology must allow the notary to communicate remotely with the customer in real time the technology must allow the notary to determine the identity of the customer the technology must allow the notary to identify the document in their presence as the same document being signed or containing a statement made by the customer and the technology must make an audio visual recording of the notarization we will address each of these conditions individually the entire remote online notarization process is done in real time the notary and the customer can see and hear each other without any delay using the approved audio visual technology the technology must make reasonable accommodations for people with vision hearing or speech impairments the technology must allow the notary to identify the customer there are three ways to identify a customer when notarizing remotely the notary may use their own personal knowledge of the customer as a method of identification the notary may use a credible witness to identify the customer or the notary may use two different types of identity proofing processes or services to identify the customer all of the remote notarization technologies approved by the department of state have two different types of identity proofing processes or services built in the technology must allow the notary to identify the document in their presence as the same document being signed by or containing a statement made by the customer and the technology must make an audio visual recording of the notarization the recording must include all interactions between the notary and the remotely located individual the recording must be retained by the notary or someone acting on behalf of the notary for at least 10 years although the notary needs to be in pennsylvania at the time of the notarization the remotely located customer may be anywhere if the customer is not in the united states the notario act must relate to a document that will be used in the united states the notarization must not violate the law in the foreign country it is not the notary's responsibility to make sure that foreign laws are not violated a notarial certificate is made up of a venue and a notary statement when performing a remote online notarization the venue is determined by the location of the notary not the remotely located customer the statements for remote online notarization are the same as you would use for any notarization the notorious certificate must be modified to indicate that the notarization was performed using communication technology this requirement is met by adding the statement this notorious act involved the use of communication technology the notorious certificate and the notary signature and stamp must be affixed to or displayed logically associated with the electronic document this information can be displayed in different ways depending on the vendor and the document preparation software used all notarizations must be recorded in a journal a notary is permitted to have a separate journal for paper notarizations and for remote online notarizations some of the technology vendors include an electronic journal the law requires that the electronic journals be tamper evident pennsylvania recorders are not required to accept electronic electronic documents that have been notarized remotely recorders may accept a paper copy of a remotely notarized document if the notary certifies that the paper copy is a true and accurate copy of the electronic record in summary remote online notarization is permanently approved in pennsylvania to notarize remotely a pennsylvania notary must become an electronic notary and use an improved remote online notarization technology the technology needs to meet strict requirements the notary must be in pennsylvania the customer can be virtually anywhere all notarizations must be kept in a journal keep in mind you're able to do a wrong notarization but you're not required to do so we'll now open up the floor for questions awesome thanks kathy so like she said at this point this is the time to ask your questions um there is about a 10 to 15 second delay from the time you send over your questions to the time that we see him on our end so give it a little bit of time there is a delay and brian just put our email address at the top of the chat box is in the yellow little sticky note it says instructors at notary.org so maybe you have a more detailed question or maybe we don't get to it today please don't hesitate to email us and uh one of us will get back to you in a timely manner all right so first question that comes um not so much a question but a statement says i signed on to vendor back in march but never heard uh heard from the company since then um you'll just want to make sure you reach out to them um to see where you're at in that process that's what i would recommend doing there was a question earlier and i'll take the next question as well but i'll answer it again somebody said you are you required to become a raw notary the answer is no uh let's see i was told that if if you are a notary in missouri you can notarize for pennsylvania residents is that accurate mary i actually can't answer that question for you you would act you would need to check with um the missouri uh notary law i can only state with the what pennsylvania says which is that to be pennsylvania uh to be a pennsylvania remote online notary you need to be in pennsylvania and you can notarize four people uh that are pretty much anywhere in the world somebody also asked is there a place where we can find a list of approved vendors that's on the department of state's website i apologize for jumping on you kathy there's a link on our helpful links document if you download the helpful links document uh you'll see that link and you can jump right to it okay um jennifer asks where can i get an e-seal from the electronic seals when you become a electronic notarization you will have to purchase software technologies from an approved vendor and they will provide the seal for you and john you want to take patricia too sure uh if i'm notarizing something for someone who is not in pennsylvania but is in the united states does the subject matter of the notization have to be an asset in pennsylvania no only if they're in a foreign country does it have to be a document that deals with the united states but in pennsylvania it does not have to deal with the pennsylvanian organization selena asked do you know if pa would add more vendors as new technology is developed um i would assume so we don't have any information on that but um yeah we noticed whenever ron was temporarily approved um back in april there were some vendors that got on that train so i'd imagine as this is now permanent um i would imagine more people are gonna start you know signing up and trying to be a a vendor and you want to take tammy yeah go for it uh tammy asked a private question she says i missed the beginning but heard that we need to have visual contact and then retain the recording for 10 years is that accurate yes those two things are accurate statements here's what i'm going to recommend tammy because you didn't hear the whole presentation i would either wait for the recording to come this afternoon so you can access it and watch the whole thing or you can attend one of our other sessions either at one this afternoon or at 11 or 1 o'clock tomorrow afternoon okay and check the department of state's website it will be electronic notary uh will be noted in your uh file if you are an electronic notary if it is not then i would um immediately reapply with the um application that is on the department of state's website and there is a under the helpful links again under the files tab there is a way that it will walk you through the steps of the electronic process so that is one way you can do that um mary says our company is essential if there is another shutdown can i still notarize documents in person during a shutdown married um it's gonna depend um for one we can't see into the future so we don't know if there is gonna be another shutdown and if there is a shutdown we don't know what that's gonna entail um we can only tell you whenever that information comes available to us then we can relay to you but we wouldn't be able to say until that time would happen but hopefully it doesn't come to that jessica asks can the application and i'm assuming the note the application to be an e notary or remote online notary uh can it be signed by nitro or do we need to print and sign the application and send it in actually you could do it either way jessica depending on where you click on the access to the application on the state's website it's unusual in one place you get a an actual printed application that you can print out fill in and send in the other way from if you are accessing it from the steps you click on that it brings you to another screen where you fill in the information and submit it electronically so either way is fine margaret asks is there additional cost to become an electronic notary the application itself is free however with the approved vendor technologies do have a cost associated with them we don't have any information on the cost since each one differs all right theresa says very nice presentation how do you go about finding an approved audio visual technology as you do not recommend a vendor um well when you do decide to go through one of the vendors they're going to have that approved audio visual technology that you're going to need to use there is a list under the files tab you go to the helpful links it's going to show you a list of the approved vendors and it's gonna some could be more real estate based for mortgages things on that nature some might be just for your standard notarizations so i would do a little research on them before you decide because i'm sure they all cost different and they're going to be maybe for your field specific so i would research them a little bit uh tammy ask is there a separate process to become certified or become a remote notary again that's available on the department of state's website i'm going to review it very very quickly with you there is a document that you can access called the steps to becoming an electronic or remote notary in pennsylvania the first is that you apply online i talked about that just a few moments ago once approved they'll you'll be notified by email by the department of state to sign on to their website again and choose a vendor or vendors of electronic or remote online notary technology then the department of state notifies the selected vendors that that particular pennsylvania notary is authorized to receive an electronic or remote technology and has selected their technology it's very complicated i know the notary and the selected electronic remote notary technology provider work together directly to obtain and pay for the technology and that's something that john just mentioned so and then step six is rather long it talks about once you've been once the technology has been issued the the technology provider will notify the department of state and your file will be marked as e-notary capable so i know that's a lot to take in i would really recommend going to the department of stats website state's website and reviewing that uh carefully on your own eileen asks how long does the process to become an electronic notary typically take varies um we've heard very quickly and we've heard a long time depending on the vendor some people are saying they've applied in march and haven't heard and some people have already are electronic notarization notaries ruth says i'm an approved ron notary is this permanent um yeah ron is now permanent in pennsylvania as of october 29th of uh 2020. that is something though that you're going to need to reapply every four years just like your notary you're going to need to reapply and go through the process um through the electronic enron so that's something you'll need to do and then bonnie sent us a private question just says my screen says the broadcast will start shortly um if you're still in your body make sure you click on the play symbol in the middle of the screen um that should start the video uh christy asks is there a list of approved vendors and a list of approved technology where do we go to find that list we've answered that question a number of times not saying you shouldn't ask but there is a link on our helpful links document you can also google the department of state's website and find out about how to become an electronic slash remote online notary on that particular page you'll also see that same link uh to the vendors andrew asks what about witnesses the ron statue allows ron but it does not appear to discuss witness requirements in a witness document that you notarize do the witnesses still have to appear before you in person or can they appear via audio visual technology witnesses can appear via audio visual technology in a wrong uh document or not in the document but in iran notarization but again to piggyback on that you really want to follow up with your uh selected iran vendor to see how that actually works correct laura says can you notarize a document that was sent in a word document um then signed and returned to me in a pdf format then can i notarize it um no i was just saying you're going to need to follow the specifics of the wrong vendor that you go through there are certain steps and technologies that you're going to need to use um if you're just a standard notary you can't just have your customer use a word document sign it and send it over to you to notarize it that's not permitted in pennsylvania if you want to start doing notarizations where your customers not the same room with you you want to follow the steps that brian covered a couple questions ago there's six steps on how to become electronic and then a remote online notary and again if you're curious on that check the department of state's website or the links are the helpful links under the files tab lisa wants to know have we addressed court reporters in this area we have not yet lisa but um to to remotely swear somebody in you want to follow the waiver that was issued by the department of state back in april of this year i know for a fact you don't need to become an e notary you don't have to use any kind of particular software those are the two things that i know off the top of my head okay reyes i notarized for my office job which is in pennsylvania and with the virus i'm working from home which is in delaware can i notarize documents on behalf of job while working from home unfortunately not with the wrong notarization the notary does have to be in pennsylvania to do the notarizations i'm going to take jill and jamie um jill says do you know how long the process takes to be approved unfortunately we do not jill i think it's going to depend on the vendor that you select depends on how busy the department of state is those are all going to be factors what i would recommend those is following up when you're on each step if you're going through the state process if you don't hear things in a couple weeks i'll follow up with them via email the same deal with with vendor you go through and then jamie says do i still need to have my co-workers personally appear um from notarizing work documents yeah if you're not a wrong notary um the personal appearance is still required absolutely no way around that unless you do go through this process to become a raw notary commara says do you uh have copies of your powerpoint to distribute xamar we don't but if you watch the replay or attend one of our other sessions you can see the the uh powerpoint again andrea has a question about her reappointment as a notary she expires or her commission rather expires in october of next year and she wants to know how soon she should start we recommend that you start as you said just about six months out we can send your application to the state or you can send your application to the state with about three months left to go on your current commission um christina asks can wills and powers of attorney be done via iran there are lots of laws dealing with wills and estate documents and we recommend um at this time we there's not enough information about that but there is we have an article that can go over further on that on the helpful links document it's written by an attorney we recommend that you contact your attorney when dealing with wills and powers of attorney but for more information check out the helpful links there is an article on specifically on wills and powers of attorney via ron i'll take judy and jennifer um judy says do you know we are not getting your input on this webinar um i'm not sure if you mean that maybe you can't hear us um or your screen froze or i don't know exactly what you're asking judy if you could try to clarify it again in the chat box maybe yeah if you're having issues click the reconnect button up top but if if i'm not answering your question please uh ask it again in the chat box uh jennifer says are there any restrictions to the types of documents that can be notarized well kathy kind of touched on that when it comes to the estate planning documents um wills your powers of attorney we can't give a definitive answer on that right now because there are a lot of laws um on wills and poas so we do recommend seeking advice from an attorney and like kathy said we do have a an article from an attorney on our helpful links he's a pennsylvania attorney that might give you a little bit more insight on it it's a very long article but it will give you some information on other than that anything um besides card titles that's also something that you do not want to notarize uh elektra or via ron it's cars gonna be car titles i'm gonna touch on candy's question and also jessica's question candy wants to know how you get paid for your services if you're asking physically how do you get paid i don't know the answer to that question i suppose it could be something that happens remotely with some type of payment service but i do not know the answer to that question i think it probably will be specific to maybe the vendor or the company you're working for or with and jessica the basis of her question is if for electronic notarization the customer needs to still personally appear what's the difference between that and what she calls regular notarization uh really there isn't any difference you're you're in the same place at the same time you identify your customer you administer an oath or take an acknowledgement you witness the customer sign but the difference here would be that with a regular notarization the document is physically there it's a piece of paper maybe but with electronic notarization the document exists in an electronically readable format i'll take um sarah and matthew because sarah is this acceptable for all types of documents such as wills poas and deeds we sort of covered this before wills and the state documents have a lot of different laws associated with them so we recommend that you contact your attorney there is an article we written by a pennsylvania attorney and ron on our helpful links document and we do at this time do not do car titles um with ron and then matthew asks are the notary fees the same for ron as they are for in-person acts the notary fees are set by the department of state and they are the same for the acts however you can charge an administrative fee all right so uh question popped in can i do notary work in chester county following cdc guidelines yeah if you're talking about um in-person notarizations yeah you can there is no shutdown um in in chester county or in pennsylvania there are advisories in some counties it's going to be county specific from this point on i believe um unless something changes but uh now this time you can do an in-person notarization just follow uh cdc and safety guidelines for sure and jennifer asks do the customers upload their own documents to these approved vendors that's a question i really can't answer specifically for you jennifer i do know that i've read that there there is uh document preparation software maybe that company uploads it to the vendor maybe the the customer uploads to the vendor i guess it depends on the situation and again that's something for specifics you you would want to check with the vendor um says we mentioned that some of the vendors process faster than the others do you know which ones tend to process your lot electronic application faster i do not it seems to vary with vendors and i don't know which one does process them faster or not i do know that when this first started to happen in march all of them were overwhelmed with the application process but they seemed to um be better at it lately carolyn asks i'm sorry if i missed this answer what does it cost to be an e notary so to just be an e notary there's actually um not a fee to apply now whenever you do get accepted and you're approved you'll need to select a vendor and that's where the fees are going to come into play through the vendor and every vendor is going to have a different fee and then if you're going to go to become a remote online notary there will be fees because the vendors are going to be specific there too so um yeah you're gonna unfortunately i can't give you a definitive answer on that that's something you're gonna need to research with the vendors and janet wants to know uh does everybody need to have the same ron technology actually the notary needs to have the rom technology the customer needs to have a camera a microphone and internet access that allows them to communicate with the notary in real time jennifer asks a private question i am a signing agent how do i address blank spaces in a document we don't want to notarize when there are blank spaces so you can either ask have the customer fill in the blanks with the appropriate information while you ask them to do that or ask the customer to line through the blank spaces and initial them so that they can't be filled in after the notarization anthony and i'll take patricia too anthony says can i apply as a ron notary and renew my commission at the same time um you do not want to do that what you want to do is renew first and then once you're approved and you go through a process then you'll want to apply as a run notary you don't want to mix them at the same time get your initial recommission done first and then do the wrong process and then patricia says will we be receiving a link to the replay you sure will everybody in the room and anybody that signed up for this morning will get a replay sent to them five five hours after we finish up here today um right yeah and then youtube also it will be uploaded on youtube so you have multiple um ways to watch it um another question about fees lori we don't have a range of fees once you get in contact with the vendor you choose you need to contact them directly to find out what their fees are and how you pay them karen wants to specifically know about documents client verifications and affidavits can we e-notarize these um first of all the client need wants to have a document notarized electronically before you can do it i mean there's no reason to notarize something electronically or remotely if the customer doesn't want that but to answer your question specifically about those documents i can't let me take one more i thought this was good for the vehicle titles age-old question and the answer is if i can get to it there it is it's number seven certificates of title may not be notarized remotely and this cannot happen until penndot decides how electronic titling will be accomplished in pennsylvania so that's going to it's going to require something to happen on penndot's end robin asks if we receive a document to be notarized at the time someone is overseas can we use ron for this or should we wait until they return if possible you can use ron for overseas documents uh the customer is overseas and has their documents they could be anywhere in the world and as long as the document deals with the united states then you can notarize that document through ron all right so jennifer says just to clarify are we we are allowed to charge an administration fee in addition to what the vendor already charges for the notarization so jennifer yeah there's two fees when it comes to the notary you have your notary fee which is what you're charging for the notary itself and typically you can't go more than five dollars on majority of the acts just as a um cliff notes version of the fees now when it comes to the admin fees your clerical administrative fees those can be whatever you think is reasonable but you need to be upfront with the customer and greet upon beforehand so you are right um you can charge as long as it's up front and make sure if you are charging give them an itemized receipt another question about motor vehicle i just answered that um certificates of title cannot be notarized remotely until uh penndot makes decisions about uh electronic titling and cynthia also asked about other motor vehicle documents i don't know of any document uh that penndot will accept that's been notarized remotely yeah that's something i wouldn't recommend either i agree with brian no um jennifer asks are any of us ron approved if yes what has been your experience i don't believe any of us are i am not ron approved um so i can't give you that ex personal experience if i own an ans if i only notarize documents requiring personal knowledge only do i need ron and electronic as well even if you are know the person through personal knowledge you still will use ron if they were remotely located because the document will be uploaded and uh the person will be verified through the software um and the electronic stamp will be on the document but if you're just going to do a normal notary personal appearance is in the room with you then that's fine too and use personal knowledge for that at this point we're actually caught up on questions it looks like um if you have more questions please go ahead and put them in the chat box there is that slight delay um our email address is at the top of the screen for questions you might have if you think it's gonna be required a more detailed response you could always email us we do have the room up until noon but we'll give it a few more moments just to play it safe to see if anything else comes in and if nothing else comes in then we will end up shutting it down uh i'm gonna type darlene here you see she can't hear us that's probably the only way right yeah uh while john is typing i'll remind you that uh once we're finished today our email address is at the top of the screen instructors at notary.org for any unanswered questions or maybe if you have a question that's more detailed to to jump backwards somebody asked if we had had any experience i know that our president mark aronson did apply and become an e-notary i'm not sure if he followed through with choosing an e-notary or a ron technology vendor that's something that i don't know the answer to but i'm pretty sure he doesn't have any experience doing raw notarizations uh you have nancy there sure one john yeah i'll take nancy so i think it's his turn yeah so uh how does the customer actually sign the document remotely um they're going to go ahead and sign it with um the approved technology from the vendor side it might be uh i think it's like a docusign or something it's going to depend on the vendor how it's set up on the customer side though they just need to make sure like brian said earlier they have like uh audio visual on their end in a good internet connection um but whenever the program uploads um it's going to walk you through how they need to sign it it's going to be a digital signature like a docusign something similar can you take signing classes online to be certified do we have to be certified to do signings now if you're talking about real estate closings the answer is there is no such certification although there are companies out there that offer classes on how to be a signing agent and some companies have come to require those classes now if you're talking about signing as a ron notary i don't know of any additional training that you can get and i can tell you right now the state does not require any additional training to become an e or iran notary got a bunch of thank yous rolling in you are welcome um let's see a lot of helpful information hey have a great day we're glad that we could do this for um mostly i'd say probably a lot of our members here so thank you for joining us today uh can you also tell us the process to do loans and signing agents and what are the costs um that's something we can't do that's something when you go through the vendor um or if you're talking about signing agent in general um we don't assist with signing agent you need to you don't need any more education technically but a lot of places won't hire you on unless you have additional education as a signing agent if you're talking about doing those things uh remotely that's something that you need to go through the vendors and there are ones that are real estate specific so i would check with those vendors since we don't have to pay to become an e-notary do we have to pay when we need to renew no the renewal process is uh as free as well but you do need to renew when you renew your regular notary commission uh for those who are dropping out or those who have are still with us rather don't forget our two documents that we have attached we have the text for act 97 we also have our helpful links document which is available under files and you all will receive a link to the replay video and it will be posted on youtube as well so maybe we'll give it another minute or so to see if any other questions pop in if not we'll go ahead and sign off and we can eat lunch and get ready for the next one yeah i'll be not yeah i'll say this will be an actual opportunity lunch last week i didn't have it have we didn't have a chance to breathe between the webinars it was pretty crazy yeah bunch of thank yous again you are very welcome stay safe out there everybody people asking telling us to be healthy and safe we say the same to you absolutely mary lynn lemon says enjoy your lunch i've had mary mary in my classes before i think thank you you're welcome thank you very much i think it's safe to say we can wrap it up here we had a lot of people drop off already yeah yeah we're down to 148. we were up well over 400 when we started awesome well thank you everybody that's still in here um look next week we'll be sending out an email um we're going to do a uh new webinar i'm talking about how to protect information in the journal we're talking about some of the changes from the old law to rolono so keep an eye on that that will be thursday and friday um but an email will go out beginning of the week i believe so um stay safe stay healthy out there and we'll see everybody next time bye bye bye all