Governor Baker Signs COVID-19 Virtual Notarization Act
Governor Baker has signed and enacted into law, An Act Providing for Virtual Notarization to Address Challenges Related to COVID-19. The Act permits Massachusetts lawyers and their paralegals, who are already Massachusetts notaries, to notarize real estate closing documents with the assistance of electronic video conferencing technology during the COVID-19 state of emergency.
The Act represents a departure from the legal requirement that notarizations must take place in person. The Act sets forth detailed requirements for the remote notarization to be effective and title companies, such as First American Title Insurance, have already implemented new underwriting standards. The team at Bernkopf Goodman LLP has summarized the requirements for your convenience, and we have the systems in place to handle all notarizations for your various real estate and corporate transactions.
Click here for the list of requirements.
If you have questions, please contact your Bernkopf Goodman team member, or the authors of this client alert, Jason Manekas at jmanekas@bg-llp.com or 617-790-3308, or Rachel Baime at rbaime@bg-llp.com or 617-790-3352.