become a notary public

Talked to the lady from the Notary Public office today and we straightened out the issue with Lele not being a relative, and she says the certificate is in the mail! Awesome. Only thing left is to get a stamp, but I’m going to mark this complete as the legal stuff is done… and my personal challenge was to finish this before March 1st, and I don’t want to forget to mark it complete before then. That was close though. What should my next personal challenge be?

I just called the Notary Public office about why they haven’t written back to me and given me my official notary badge and stamp. It turns out that they thought my application was incomplete because one of my endorsers was Lele and, they say, “you can’t be endorsed by a family member”. Of course, I had to explain that we weren’t related… that it was PURE COINCIDENCE that we have the same last name. But, I had to explain all of this on Layla’s voice mail so we’ll see what they have to say tomorrow.

I mailed in my notarized application, a check for $30, and a copy of my surety bond to the DOL today. Now I just wait, hopefully, for my notary license to come, and I go pick out a stamp for myself. And then what? Not sure… but it’ll be cool!

To be a notary public, you need a 4-year surety bond for $10,000. I think that just protects you against being sued for being a bad notary or something. Or, allows people to sue you. In any case, I found that Allstate (the company that does my condo insurance) sells surety bonds for $100. Setting it up today.

Another funny part is that I’ve got to find 3 residents of Washington state who are willing to endorse me as a “person of integrity, good moral character, and someone who is capable of performing notarial acts”. That’s going to be tricky.

I just need to get a surety bond, which most banks and insurance companies offer. After that, it’s just a matter of paying $30 and filling out a form (instructions here).