O.C.G.A.

O.C.G.A. § 45-17-5 (2019)

Term of office; revocation; renewal of commission; issuance of certificates of appointment; record of appointments; misrepresentation as notary

✓ O.C.G.A. — 2019 edition (Public.Resource.Org Release 73)

Code text and O.C.G.A. statutory annotations on this page reflect the 2019 Official Code of Georgia Annotated (Public.Resource.Org Release 73, 2019-08-21; public domain per Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 2020). The Syfert case-law annotations in Notes of Decisions, below, are current.

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(a) Each notary public shall hold office for four years, subject to revocation at any time by the clerk of the superior court, at the end of which time, on petition, his commission may be renewed by order of the clerk for a like term. Renewal of a notary public commission may be done in person or by mail at the discretion of the clerk of superior court. The clerk of the superior court shall issue to each notary public a certificate of his appointment and qualifications, which certificate shall contain the name, address, age, and sex of the appointee, the date the certificate was issued, and the term for which the appointment runs. The clerk shall also keep a record of the names, addresses, signatures, ages, sex, and the terms of all notaries public whom he appoints. (b) At the time the clerk of the superior court issues a certificate of appointment as provided in subsection (a) of this Code section, said officer shall also issue to the appointee a duplicate original of such certificate. The presentation of such duplicate original, either by mail or in person, to the supplier of a notary public seal shall be necessary to authorize such supplier to make up a notary public seal and deliver it to the appointee. (c) It shall be unlawful for any person to hold himself or herself out as a notary public or to exercise the powers of a notary public unless such person has an unexpired commission as a notary public. (Laws 1824, Cobb’s 1851 Digest, p. 210; Code 1863, § 1448; Ga. L. 1868, p. 130, § 2; Code 1868, § 1505; Code 1873, § 1499; Code 1882, § 1499; Civil Code 1895, § 500; Civil Code 1910, § 618; Code 1933, § 71-104; Ga. L. 1947, p. 1108, § 1; Ga. L. 1949, p. 1940, § 1; Ga. L. 1982, p. 1106, § 1; Ga. L. 1983, p. 3, § 34; Ga. L. 1984, p. 1105, § 1.)

Annotations

Editor’s notes. - Ga. L. 1982, p. 1106, § 2, not codified by the General Assembly, provided as follows: ‘‘This Act shall not

invalidate any notary public seal lawfully issued and possessed prior to the effective date of this Act [November 1, 1982].’’

JUDICIAL DECISIONS Holds over until successor appointed. - Notaries public are public officers, whose duties, oaths and powers are prescribed by law. They are appointed for four years, but upon the expiration of that time, a notary and the notary’s office do not cease, but the notary continues to hold that position until a successor is appointed, or until the notary is removed. Smith & Bondurant v. Meador, 74 Ga. 416, 58 Am. R. 438 (1885). Notarial acts after end of term. - If, after the expiration of the term for which

a notary was appointed and before that fact was discovered, the notary attested an affidavit, both parties acting in good faith, if not an officer de jure, the notary would, in such transaction, be an officer de facto, and the attestation would not be void. Smith & Bondurant v. Meador, 74 Ga. 416, 58 Am. R. 438 (1885). Cited in Stoudemire v. HSBC Bank USA, N.A., 333 Ga. App. 374, 776 S.E.2d 483 (2015), cert. denied, 2016 Ga. LEXIS 280 (Ga. 2016).

OPINIONS OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL Usually a notary public may be classified as a public official. 1969 Op. Att’y Gen. No. 69-309. RESEARCH REFERENCES ALR. - Notary public as an officer, 79 ALR 449.

Notes of Decisions

Cited in 4 cases, 2002–2015 · leading case: Mills v. Parker, 560 S.E.2d 42 (Ga. Ct. App. 2002).

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Mills v. Parker, 560 S.E.2d 42 (Ga. Ct. App. 2002). · cites it 4× “See OCGA §§ 45-17-5; 45-17-20(a). Thus, Prophecy Corp.”

Gordon v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. (In Re Codrington), 430 B.R. 287 (Bankr. N.D. Ga. 2009). · cites it 2× “”) It would shift to the subsequent bona fide purchaser and everyone else the task of determining the genuineness of the grantor’s signature and therefore the cost of investigating and perhaps litigating whether or not an unattested deed was in fact signed by the grantor, when…”

Gordon v. U.S. Bank, Nat'l Ass'n (In Re Hagler), 429 B.R. 42 (Bankr. N.D. Ga. 2009). · cites it 2× “See OCGA §§ 45-17-5; 45-17-20(a).”) Defendant’s construction of § 44-14-33 would shift to the subsequent bona fide purchaser and everyone else the burden of determining the genuineness of the grant- or’s signature and therefore the cost of investigating and perhaps litigating…”

Stoudemire Et Al. v. Hsbc Bank USA, N.A., 776 S.E.2d 483 (Ga. Ct. App. 2015). · cites it 2× “They assert that the notary seal shows that the notary’s commission was to expire on August 5, 2014, that notary commissions are limited to four years under OCGA § 45-17-5 (a), and that the assignment was dated September 30, 2006.”

Annotations are extracted automatically from the opinions in the Syfert caselaw corpus and ranked by authority, recency, and treatment. Dots show Syfertize treatment of the citing case itself.