New Short Form Acknowledgments Available! – Land Title Association of Mississippi

Many of you have noticed that lenders have wasted no time incorporating the new “short form” versions of notary acknowledgments, which were authorized with the recent re-write of Mississippi’s notary laws. This re-write created the “Revised Mississippi Law on Notarial Acts,” which went into effect July 1, 2021. Among other things, this new notary law authorizes the use of “short form” acknowledgments in addition to the traditional “long-form” acknowledgments.

Acknowledgments no longer need to be in a particular form to be valid. To be sufficient, a certificate of a notarial act (e.g., an acknowledgment, jurat, etc.), must simply:

be executed contemporaneously with the performace of the notarial act;
be signed and dated by the notary public;
identify the jurisdiction in which the notarial act was performed;
contain the title of the office of the notarial officer (i.e., notary public, judge, clerk, etc.);
indicate the date of expiration of the notary public’s commission (if applicable); and
affix the notary public’s official seal (if applicable).

By way of example, below is a standard long-form and short-form version of the acknowledgment for comparison:

LONG FORM ACKNOWLEDGMENT – NATURAL PERSON:

STATE OF ______
COUNTY OF ______
Personally appeared before me, the undersigned authority in and for the said county and state, on this _____ day of __________, 20___, within my jurisdiction, the within named __________, who acknowledged that (he) (she) (they) executed the above and foregoing instrument.
______________________________
(Signature of notarial officer)
______________________________
(Title of office)
My commission expires: __________

SHORT FORM ACKNOWLEDGMENT – NATURAL PERSON:

STATE OF ______
COUNTY OF ______
This record was acknowledged before me on __________ (date) by __________ (name(s) of individual(s)).
______________________________
(Signature of notarial officer)
______________________________
(Title of office)
My commission expires: __________

For a complete list of new short-form acknowledgments, please see Miss. Code Ann. 89-3-7 (or HB 1156).

While the new notary act does NOT authorize remote ink-signed notarization (“RIN”) or remote online notarization (“RON”), it does authorize traditional wet-ink notarization (“TWIN”) and in-person electronic notarization (“IPEN”). In both cases, the person signing a document to be notarized would still need to physically appear in person before the notary.