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Glossary of Notary Public, Mortgage, Signing Agent, and Loan Signing Terms.

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Affidavit

Phonetics: af·fi·da·vit    \ˌafə-'dāvət\

Function: noun

The affiant is the individual who signs and swears to an affidavit. There are many types of affidavits. Some are for business, mortgages, immigration, and there are many other purposes for affidavits. Affidavits include sworn statements, and a notary public is authorized to administer oaths for sworn statements and notarize signatures on affidavits or almost any other type of document. An affidavit might have the standard Jurat verbiage embedded in the end of the document. Otherwise, the notary should be equipped with loose Jurat certificates to staple to the back of the document. The Jurat certificate will include some standard notary wording and a place for the notary to sign and affix his/her official notary seal (most but not all states require a seal).

Definition 1:
A document that contains a statement, made under oath or affirmation, signed by the affiant and a jurat certificate signed and sealed by a notary. The most common type of affidavit that gets notarized is an immigration document called the Affidavit of Support which is a document where a person swears that they will take financial responsibility for another person that they are sponsering to come to the United States. Another common Affidavit is an Affidavit of citizenship which is a document where the affiant swears under oath that they are a citizen of the United States. Affidavits of citizenship used to be an acceptable travel document that could substitute a passport in many cases before September 11, 2001.