Resources > Glossary > Blank Spaces in Documents

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

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Blank Spaces in Documents

Function: noun

A Notary should not notarize a document with blank spaces. If a notary notarizes a document with blank spaces, the signer or other party could fill in anything in those blank statements after the notarization, thus changing the content of the document, and making the signers signature that was notarized meaningless, since they didn't sign the document in its final condition. Notarizing documents with blank spaces is a huge liability and should be avoided at all costs.

One way around the problem of blank spaces is to put a line through the blanks, or find out what information should or could be put in those blanks, so you can get the document notarized. Please keep in mind that laws effecting the notarization of documents with blank spaces may differ from state to state. Notarizing documents with blanks is one of the items on the list of situation where the notary is typically instructed to, "Just say no!". Please visit our blog to read our section on when to say no.

Definition 1:
A space between words in a document where a name or numeric figure is intended to be written.

Definition 2:
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