Posted by John Merchant on August 20, 2004 at 10:28:39:
Just an extra layer of security?
I’ll challenge you to find any title co. in CA who’d agree with you.
While it may be ( I didn’t check the CCC’s on this)that no Deed has to be notarized in CA, it cannot be recorded without that NP’s acknowledgement, so that could cause big title problems.
I don’t know any experienced REI who’d accept any deed without the NP signature.
By the way, some state statutes DO require NP’s acknowledgement for validity per se, such as mine here in WA, which says ANY conveyance of any rights in RE, (including a lease of 12M or longer), MUST be NP’d.
I recently took title to a local SFR, “subject to”, which had in it, a resident “putative” long term lessee, who claimed to have a 5 year lease at a ridiculous low rate, which she had conned the elderly owner into granting her…and which gave that tenant, in her opinion, the right to stay right there and continue to pay peanuts for rent for the duration.
That “lease” clearly showed, on close examination, to have been signed by the elderly lady owner with NO NP’s acknowledgment…and which made it, under WA law, totally invalid. All that tenant had was a month-to-month rental agreement.
So a simple letter to the tenant advising her she had 30 days to get out was all I had to do to get her gone.
She belly-ached and made all kinds of evil threats about her rights, what her lawyer was going to do to me, etc., etc…but apparently her lawyer agreed with me, because that tenant was gone in 30 days.
I even insist that some docs that aren’t required to have NP, be NP acknowledged, because I want the NP there as a witness to the competency and openness of my dealings with the other guy/gal.
An example of one of these deals was a recent deal where I took a written (and notarized) agreement to market a woman’s MH…and for my efforts, she agreed to give me a percentage commission, should I produce a buyer, and gave me an exclusive listing for a short period of time.
A few days later when I was talking to her she told me she’d found a buyer and I was no longer wanted or needed…when I reminded her of our NP witnessed written agreement, she said she had no memory of that deal!