Notary questions, answered plainly

Florida caps the notarial act at $10 per signature notarised. That is set by Florida Statutes §117.05 and no notary may charge more for the act itself. Remote online notarisation has a separate, higher cap of $25 per act. A mobile notary may also charge a travel fee, which Florida does not cap — but it must be disclosed and agreed before the appointment.

You are paying for two different things. The notarial act is capped at $10 either way. The additional cost is the travel: the notary is driving to you, at a time you chose, often outside business hours. If you can get to a bank branch where you hold an account during working hours, that is usually cheaper. If you cannot — because you are in hospital, at a job site, or the document is needed at 7pm — the travel fee is what makes it possible.

Sometimes. Many banks and credit unions notarise free for account holders. Some public libraries in Lee County offer low-cost notary services, and AAA offers it free to members at some branches. Those are all worth trying first if your document is simple, you can travel, and you can go during business hours.

If we travel to you and the notarisation cannot proceed — no valid ID, the signer is not lucid, the document is missing witness lines — we charge the travel fee only, not the notarial fee, because no notarial act was performed. We work hard to catch these on the phone first so the trip does not happen at all.

A single-document appointment is usually ten to fifteen minutes from knock to seal. A power of attorney with two witnesses is closer to twenty-five. A full loan signing package runs sixty to ninety minutes because there are a hundred pages to work through properly.

No — and please do not. The notary has to witness the signature. If the document is already signed when we arrive, you sign again in front of us, which means a fresh copy if there is no room. Leave it blank at the signature line.

The notary must be able to communicate directly with you and must be able to identify the type of document and complete the notarial certificate. We can notarise documents in Spanish. For other languages, the notarial certificate itself must be in English or accompanied by a certified translation — call us and we will tell you whether what you have will work.

Yes. Each signer needs their own valid photo ID and each must be personally present. There is a $10 charge per signature notarised, but only one travel fee for the visit — so grouping signers into one appointment is much cheaper than booking separately.

Yes. Under the full faith and credit clause, a properly executed Florida notarisation is recognised in every other US state. What does not travel is the notary: a Florida commission only authorises you to perform notarial acts while physically in Florida. Location of the notary matters; location of the document does not.

The notarisation itself does not expire — it records that a signature happened on a date. What can lapse is the document. Some receiving institutions will not accept a power of attorney or an affidavit that is more than six or twelve months old, and that is their policy, not a legal expiry. Check with the recipient if the document has been sitting in a drawer.

Usually not on its own. Most foreign governments want an apostille — a certificate from the Florida Department of State authenticating the notary’s commission. The notarisation is step one, the apostille is step two. See our apostille page for how the sequencing works, because doing it in the wrong order is the most common reason documents come back rejected.