Delaware remote online notary: the state rule and your options

Mixing the labels into one “is video legal in Delaware?” checkout is how a Wilmington owner pays a company sticker and still has a notary who never requested remote privileges, or treats a $25 company price as if the FAQ and the statute had used the same sentence. Delaware video work is legal. It is not automatic on the day the ordinary commission arrives. The fee is the place the statute and the live FAQ are not the same width.

• Remote online notarization is a notarial act for a remotely located individual, by communication technology. Communication technology means a live connection you and the notary can see and hear. 29 Del. C. § 4320. The notary is physically in Delaware. You are not in the same room. The usual video product is an electronic record.
• A tangible record on the same video call is a different sentence in the same section. A tangible record is a record you can hold. § 4320(d) lets the notary acknowledge a signature on a tangible record that is physically in front of the notary, if that record is shown to you on the recording. § 4320(e) covers a tangible record that is in front of you. You sign the record and a declaration, on the recording, and you send both to the notary within three days. That path is not the same-session electronic checkout.
• An in-person electronic act is a third job. § 4333: before the first notarial act on an electronic record, the notary notifies the Secretary of State and names the technology. The signer can still be in the room. The FAQ says personal appearance in Delaware is required for that in-room act. Remote is the path where you do not have to be in Delaware, and the notary still does.

The permanent date is the session law, not a slogan. 83 Del. Laws, chapter 425, Senate Bill 262 of the 151st General Assembly: section 14 says sections 1 through 11 and section 13 take effect on August 1, 2023. Section 12, effective on enactment, extended an April 15, 2020 emergency notarization paragraph through July 31, 2023. Section 13 repeals that paragraph. The emergency path was written to end on July 31, 2023. The permanent remote section started the next day. The important-information page uses the same August 1, 2023 date for requesting remote or electronic privileges through the Notary Profile.

The old electronic-notary appointment did not survive that date. § 4302, as the code display we retrieved shows it, is “Appointment of electronic notaries; term,” and the history line says it was repealed by 83 Del. Laws, c. 425, § 2, effective August 1, 2023. The Delaware Laws index on the notary site still lists the pre-August 1, 2023 titles, including that electronic-notary appointment, and it still uses the old section numbers for the uniform act. We use delcode.delaware.gov, Title 29, Chapter 43. We are not treating the index as a repeal of chapter 425.

The ordinary commission comes first. § 4301(b), as amended by chapter 425: the applicant is at least 18, a citizen or permanent legal resident of the United States, a resident of Delaware or a person with a place of employment or practice in Delaware, able to read and write English, and not disqualified under § 4334. § 4301(c): a nonresident files a residential address and the address of the place of employment or practice in Delaware, and notifies the Secretary of State of an address change within 30 days. § 4301(d): before the commission issues, the applicant executes an oath of office and submits it to the Secretary of State. § 4308: the notary may not perform notarial acts until the Secretary receives a copy of the fully executed oath. The FAQ says the same thing about the oath after the commission certificate arrives.

The apply page and the current qualifications section are not the same width. The apply page we retrieved still says an applicant must be of good character and reputation, must have a reasonable need for a commission, and must supply a certified background check for a prior conviction. Chapter 425 struck “good character and reputation” and “a reasonable need” from the old § 4301(b). The current section points disqualification at § 4334, which includes a felony or a crime involving fraud, dishonesty, or deceit, and a dishonest misstatement in the application. We are printing the apply page and the current section. We are not deciding which sentence a clerk will use on a given application.

A nonresident can hold the commission. The FAQ quotes the older “office or regular place of employment” sentence and then says a post office box, virtual office space, or a registered agent does not qualify as the employer address. The apply page says the same three do not qualify, and it adds that the Delaware employment address has to be available Monday through Friday during normal business hours to accept service of process. § 4301(c) is the current statute. It requires the employment or practice address in Delaware. We are printing the statute and the FAQ. We are not treating a mail drop as that address.

The dollars for the commission are the rare numbers the statute and the fee page share. § 4307(a): the initial commission is two years. A renewal may be two years or four years. The nonrefundable application fee is $60 for a two-year term or $90 for a four-year term. The fee-information page: a new traditional commission, two-year term only, $60; a two-year renewal, $60; a four-year renewal, $90. The FAQ says the fee is nonrefundable if the application is rejected, citing § 4307(a). A limited governmental commission and a service-organization commission are a different product on that fee page, at $0, with limits the apply page prints. They are not the ordinary public commission this scorecard is grading.

There is no bond, and there is no training course in the current FAQ. The FAQ question “Are Delaware notaries required to be bonded?” is answered “No.” The next question, “Is training required to become a Notary Public?”, is answered “No. Training is currently not required.” Iowa’s remote path has a $30 course and a no-fee remote application. Kansas prints a $12,000 bond. Delaware’s FAQ does not print a bond, and it does not print a course fee. A bond is a promise of money if the notary fails the duties of the office. It is not the price of your session. Delaware does not publish a bond amount.

The technology is a roster the Secretary publishes. The approved-provider page says a Delaware notary who is approved for electronic documents, or for documents of a remotely located individual, must use one of the listed providers and must indicate that provider in the Notary Profile. Names on the list we retrieved, marked Electronic and Remote, include NotaryLive, OneNotary, BlueNotary, NotaryCam, and PandaDoc. The list is longer than the names repeated here. Proof and Notarize do not appear on it. Corporation Service Company, EscrowTab, and Wolters Kluwer Lien Solutions appear as Electronic Only. The page says a provider that is not listed should email the Notary Department. That roster is an approval list. It is not a ranking of which company a signer should hire. NotaryLive is on it. Proof is not, on the copy we retrieved. A checkout that shows Proof is the company’s screen. It is not a statement that this Delaware notary named Proof in the Notary Profile, and it is not a statement that Proof is a Delaware-approved remote platform.

Read both fee sentences before you treat a company price as Delaware law. § 4311(a): the maximum for a notarial act on a tangible record is $5. § 4311(b): the maximum for a notarial act on an electronic record is $25. § 4311(d): the notary may waive the fee. § 4311(c): charging more can cost the commission, and the notary may not be reappointed for two years. The FAQ, “How much can I charge for notarization?”, says “$5.00 is the maximum a notary may charge per notarization,” and that the notary may waive the fee. It cites § 4312 for special rules on certain armed-forces and veteran services. It does not mention the $25 electronic maximum. We are printing both. We are not deciding which ceiling a complaint desk will use for a video session. A video session is an electronic record, so a reader may think § 4311(b) is the sentence that applies, and the FAQ still prints only $5. Maryland’s remote cap is $30. Iowa prints no dollar cap. Delaware prints two official numbers that do not match.

Travel is the third fee sentence, and it is not a cap. The FAQ says Delaware law does not address fees for travel related to a notarial act. It points to the Internal Revenue Service business-mileage rate as a national norm, and it says to give the fee list before the act or the trip, with the notarial-act fee itemized apart from any other fee. We will not turn that suggestion into a Delaware mileage statute. A house call is a price you agree to first.

Where you may sit is § 4320, and the notary’s chair is narrower than yours. The notarial officer is located in this State. You are a remotely located individual, which the section defines as a person who is not in the physical presence of that officer. The FAQ says you may notarize only inside Delaware, and that for a remote act the signer need not be in Delaware while the notary must be. If you are outside the United States, subsection (c)(4) is the extra confirmation: the record is for a United States court, government, or other covered entity, or it involves property or a transaction substantially connected with the United States, and the act of signing is not prohibited where you are.

The ID check has three doors, and the remote door that uses identity proofing asks for two types. Identity proofing, in § 4320(a)(3), 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. Credential analysis is a check, by a third-party service, that a photo identification is real. Knowledge-based authentication (KBA) is a quiz drawn from your personal history. Those two phrases are how video companies describe the work. Delaware’s section does not print Iowa’s five-question, 80 percent quiz, and it does not print a minute count. § 4320(c)(1): the notary may use personal knowledge under § 4321(a); or satisfactory evidence by oath or affirmation of a credible witness; or at least two different types of identity proofing. Personal knowledge means dealings that give reasonable certainty you are who you claim to be. A credible witness is a person who knows you and will swear to that. The FAQ uses the same “at least 2 different types of identity proofing” sentence for a remotely located individual.

§ 4321 is the in-person identification rule, and it is stricter on expiration than Iowa’s three-year window. A passport, a driver’s license, or a government nondriver identification card must be current and not expired before the act. Another government identification may be used if it is current, contains a signature or a photograph, and satisfies the notary. A credible witness must appear in person and be known to the notary, or be identified on a current passport, driver’s license, or nondriver card. The notary may ask for more. If the two-type remote check cannot finish, a mobile notary or a walk-in is the product that can finish.

The certificate has required words. § 4320(i) and (j): the certificate must show that the act used communication technology. A short form is enough if it meets the Secretary’s rules, or if it is the statutory short form and contains a statement substantially as follows: “This notarial act involved the use of communication technology.” § 4328 is the certificate section the remote statute points at.

The session file is part of the remote act, and the journal is a separate rule that covers every act. § 4320(c)(3): the notary, or a person acting for the notary, creates an audio-visual recording of the performance of the notarial act. § 4320(k): unless a rule sets a different period, the recording is kept at least ten years. We did not read a shorter floor on the SOS pages we retrieved. § 4332(a): the notary keeps a journal of all notarial acts and retains it for ten years after the last act in that journal. § 4332(b): one journal at a time, tangible or electronic, even if the acts themselves are mixed. A tangible journal is a permanent bound register with numbered pages. An electronic journal is permanent and tamper-evident under the Secretary’s rules. The entry is made at the time of the act and 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 decided, and the fee, if any.

The FAQ and § 4332 do not use one sentence about what happens when the commission ends. The FAQ says that, effective August 1, 2023, every commissioned notary must keep a journal, in one format only, and that a notary who does not renew must retain the journal for ten years or transmit it to the Delaware Notary Administrator. § 4332(e) and (f): on resignation, revocation, or suspension, the notary retains the journal under subsection (a) and tells the Secretary where it is, or transmits it to the Secretary of State or a repository the Secretary approves. We are printing the FAQ and the statute. We are not deciding that “Notary Administrator” and “Secretary of State” are different desks, and we are not deciding that skipping a renewal is the only event that starts the ten-year hold.

§ 4335 is the public check on whether this notary can do the video job. The Secretary keeps an electronic database that lets a person verify the notary’s authority and that shows whether the notary has notified the Secretary about electronic records or about remote acts under § 4320. The FAQ says that database went up on the state’s Open Data portal on August 1, 2023. A company checkout does not replace that lookup.