Alaska remote online notary: the state rule and your options

Mixing the labels into one “is video legal in Alaska?” checkout is how an Anchorage owner pays a company sticker and still has a notary who never wrote the Lieutenant Governor, or treats Oklahoma’s caps as if they were printed in AS 44.50. Alaska’s remote path is legal. It is not automatic on the day the commission arrives. It is also not a state maximum of $5 or $25 for the act itself.

Oklahoma is the contrast, and it is a different state. An Oklahoma in-person act is capped at $5. An Oklahoma remote act is capped at $25. Oklahoma’s remote gate is a $25 Secretary of State authorization, and renewing the commission does not renew that authorization. Alaska’s remote gate is a written request to the Lieutenant Governor. The state fee for that request is $100 after a new four-year commission, or $25 for each year still left. Alaska does not print a dollar cap on what the notary may charge you for the act. The guardrail is the fee schedule the notary must show you first. A company sticker near $25 can sit on Oklahoma’s remote cap. It is not an Alaska legal maximum, and it is not the $100 or $25 the notary pays the state to turn the remote path on.

• Remote online notarization is a notarial act by communication technology. Communication technology means a live connection you and the notary can see and hear at the same time. AS 44.50.200, as HB 124 added it. The notary is physically in Alaska. You are not in the same room.
• An in-person act is the ordinary job. You and the notary are in the same room. AS 44.50.062(5) still requires that appearance, except when AS 44.50.075 is the path. The in-person job does not use the remote fee schedule as a state cap, because Alaska did not print one.

The commission comes first. The lieutenant governor commissions notaries for four years. AS 44.50.010 and the overview page: the applicant is at least 18, a resident of Alaska, and legally in the United States. A felony conviction in the 10 years before the commission takes effect blocks the application. A regular commission and a limited governmental commission are different cards. A limited governmental notary is a state, municipal, or federal employee. That commission is only for official government business, and it lasts while that job lasts. AS 44.50.039: a limited governmental notary may not charge a fee.

The bond is not the price of your session. A bond is a promise of money if the notary fails the duties of the office. AS 44.50.034, on the live statutes page: a notary without limitation files an official bond of $2,500 for a four-year term. The overview page and the FAQ print the same $2,500. The 2021 bond form prints a penal sum of $2,500. Enrolled HB 124, section 5, shows the change: the act replaced $1,000 with $2,500. Section 17(c) applies that bond change to a person who applies for a new or subsequent commission on or after January 1, 2021. We did not retrieve a live Lieutenant Governor page that still prints $1,000 as the bond due now. The older figure is the amount the enrolled act struck. We are not choosing between two live prices. The live pages we read agree on $2,500.

The $40 application fee is where the sources do not use the same sentence, even though they print the same dollar. Enrolled HB 124, section 4, struck the words “of $40” from AS 44.50.033 and said the lieutenant governor sets the application fee by regulation. 6 AAC 88.020(a), effective January 1, 2021, Register 237, sets that fee at $40. The live statutes compilation still prints “a nonrefundable application fee of $40” inside AS 44.50.033. The overview page, the commission-types page, the notary hub, and the capabilities page also tell the applicant to pay $40. The amount agrees. The statute sentence on the compilation page does not match the enrolled act. We are printing both. We are not choosing which window a clerk will cite.

The remote fee is the second gate, and the regulation and the capabilities page agree on the dollars. 6 AAC 88.020(b): in addition to the $40, the fee to perform notarial acts using communication technology for remotely located individuals is $100 for an initial notary public commission. If the notary is already commissioned when that person applies for the remote path, the fee is $25 for each remaining year of that commission. The Updated Notarial Capabilities page prints the same split: $100 at the initial request after approval of a four-year commission, or $25 per remaining year of a pre-existing commission, to the State of Alaska, on top of the $40. That page still says the changes “will be in effect by January 1, 2021.” Enrolled HB 124, section 21, and the guidance PDF updated February 4, 2021, say the act took effect January 1, 2021. The tense on the capabilities page is older than the effective-date line. The fee dollars match the regulation.

The written request is more specific than the statute’s word “notify.” AS 44.50.075(e): before the first remote act, the notary tells the lieutenant governor that remote acts will be performed and identifies the communication technologies. The guidance, updated February 4, 2021, says the request is in writing and may be emailed to notary@alaska.gov. It asks for the name as it appears on the commission, the commission number, a description of the technology vendor, and a copy of the electronic signature and the seal the platform will use. The notary office address on the capabilities page is 240 Main St., Room 301, Juneau, AK 99801. Mailing address: Notary Office, PO Box 110015, Juneau, AK 99811. Questions: (907) 465-3509, or 877-764-1234 toll free in Alaska. The hub page says a commissioned notary who wants remote online notarization must submit that written request to the notary administrator and points at the same guidance.

The vendor list is a guide. It is not an approved-only roster, and the two lists we read are not the same list. The February 4, 2021 guidance says the names were compiled as a guide, not an endorsement, and not in any particular order: LiveNotary, LLC; Digital Delivery, Inc.; SIGNiX; Notarize; NotaryCam; and DocVerify. It also says the website list would be updated. The live Notarial Resources page, retrieved for this page, lists Astrean, Notaron, Notarize, and NotaryCam. That page says none of the companies are endorsed, the list is alphabetical, and you are not limited to it. Notarize appears on both lists. NotaryCam appears on both lists. LiveNotary, Digital Delivery, SIGNiX, and DocVerify are on the 2021 guidance and not on the resources page we retrieved. Astrean and Notaron are on the resources page and not on that guidance PDF. A checkout that shows Proof or Notarize is the company’s screen. It is not a statement that this notary named that vendor in the written request.

Where you may sit is narrower for the notary than for you. AS 44.50.075(b): a notary located in this state may perform the remote act. The FAQ answers “May I notarize documents outside the State of Alaska?” with no. The notary works inside Alaska’s geographical boundaries. You may be in Alaska. You may be elsewhere in the United States. You may be outside the United States only if the record is to be filed with or relates to a matter before a public official, court, governmental entity, or other entity subject to United States jurisdiction, or involves property in the territorial jurisdiction of the United States or a transaction substantially connected with the United States, and the act is not prohibited in the foreign state where you are. A foreign state, in this section, means a jurisdiction other than the United States, a state, or a federally recognized tribe.

The ID check has three doors, and the quiz door has numbers. AS 44.50.075(b)(1): the notary may rely on personal knowledge of you; or on the oath or affirmation of a credible witness who appears before the notary; or on a government-issued identification card, plus credential analysis of that card, plus at least one type of identity proofing. Personal knowledge means the notary already knows you from dealings that make your identity reasonably certain. Credential analysis, in the statute’s own words, is a form of identity proofing by which a third person affirms that a government identification card is accurate. Identity proofing, as HB 124 defines it, is a process or service by which a third person gives the notary a way to verify a remote signer by a review of personal information from public or private data sources. A credible witness is a person who knows you and will swear to that.

6 AAC 88.040 is the rule for the door that is not personal knowledge and not a credible witness. It calls that door multi-factor authentication. The procedure must check the identification credential against trusted third-party data sources, bind your identity to you after a successful knowledge-based authentication assessment, and let the notary compare the credential with the person on the live connection. Credential analysis and identity proofing must be done by a reputable third party that has shown the notary it can meet the chapter. Knowledge-based authentication is a quiz drawn from your personal history. The rule prints the quiz: at least five questions; at least five answer choices each; at least 80 percent correct; all questions answered within two minutes; one retake within 24 hours, with at least 40 percent of the prior questions replaced; no third try with the same notary until at least 24 hours after the second failure; and the notary must not be able to see or record the questions or answers. If you leave the session before identity verification is finished, 6 AAC 88.030(c) says you start that check over. If the quiz cannot finish, a mobile notary or a walk-in is the product that can finish.

A credible witness does not have to sit in only one chair. 6 AAC 88.040(d): the quiz rules do not apply when the notary has personal knowledge of you, or when a credible witness identifies you. The witness must have personal knowledge of you. The notary must have personal knowledge of the witness, or must check the witness with the same multi-factor steps. The witness may be outside the physical presence of the notary or of you if the notary, the witness, and you can communicate by the technology. The capabilities page says the credible witness must take part in the synchronous audio-video feed. Those two sentences point the same direction: the witness is on the live connection, not a name typed in later.

The certificate has required words. AS 44.50.075(c): the certificate must state that the notarial act was performed using communication technology. A statement is sufficient if it states substantially: “This notarial act involved the use of communication technology.” 6 AAC 88.050 says a remote certificate is sufficient if it is substantially in a form state law already allows and includes that communication-technology statement. A certificate is the short block of words that says what the notary did.

The session file is part of the act, and the clock is 10 years unless a regulation changes it. AS 44.50.075(d): the notary, a guardian, a conservator, an agent, or the personal representative of a deceased notary keeps the audio-video recording, or has a repository keep it. Unless a different period is required by a regulation adopted under subsection (f)(4), the recording is kept at least 10 years after it is made. The sections of 6 AAC 88 we read are applicability, the fee, communication-technology standards, identity proofing, and the certificate form. We did not read a section in that chapter that replaces the 10-year recording floor.

The journal is a separate 10-year clock, and it is for remote acts. Enrolled HB 124, section 11, adds AS 44.50.078. The notary keeps a journal of all notarial acts performed under AS 44.50.075 and retains that journal for 10 years after the last act written in it. The journal may be on a tangible medium or in an electronic format. The notary must keep at least one tangible journal for those remote acts. An electronic journal, if used, must be permanent and tamper-evident. Tamper-evident means a later change shows. The entry is made at the time of the act. It includes the date and time, a description of the record and the type of act, the full name and address of each person, how identity was established, and the fee, if any. A lost or stolen journal is reported to the lieutenant governor. The FAQ restates that journal rule and cites HB 124. The live Alaska Notary Statutes page we retrieved does not display AS 44.50.075 or AS 44.50.078. The office still publishes the 44.50.075 PDF, the enrolled bill, and the FAQ. We are printing that gap. We are not treating the missing headings as a repeal.

We did not read a ban on wills, trusts, or deeds in AS 44.50.075. The silence is not a promise that a desk will take video. AS 44.50.061 is a different limit: a notary who is not an attorney may complete a certificate but may not select the certificate, and may not help another person draft, complete, select, or understand a document that needs a notarial act. If the job is “tell me which certificate to use,” that is not a video checkout. Enrolled section 3 adds AS 40.17.140(b): when the recording chapter is applied, the department shall accept notarial acts performed for remotely located individuals under AS 44.50.075. That is the recorder’s rule. A bank, a title desk, and a mailbox store are not that department.

NNA’s country page says that, in states that cap remote fees, $25 is a common maximum. Alaska does not print that cap. The $25 on the Alaska pages we read is the yearly slice of the remote request fee when a commission is already running, and it is also the number inside the $100 initial request only as a fraction of four years. It is not a legal maximum for the act. The $100 is what a new commission pays the state to add the remote path. It is not the price of your session.