The Notarial Register and Why It Matters

When you leave a notary's office, you take the notarised document with you. What stays behind is less visible and, over time, often more important: an entry in the notary's register recording what was done, for whom and when.

The register is the reason a notarial act can be checked years after the event, by someone on the other side of the world who has never heard of the notary. It is also one of the clearest differences between a notary and other people who witness signatures or certify copies.

What the register is

A notary keeps a permanent record of their notarial acts. The detail of what must be recorded, and in what form, is set by the rules of each jurisdiction and by notarial practice, but a register entry typically captures:

• the date and, often, the place of the act
• the nature of the act — a certified copy, an attested signature, an oath
• the name of the person who appeared, and how they were identified
• a description of the document, sufficient to identify it later
• the capacity in which someone signed, where they signed for a company or under a power of attorney
• a reference number linking the entry to the certificate issued

Many notaries also retain a copy of the document or of the notarial certificate. Practice on how much is kept varies between notaries and jurisdictions.

Why it is permanent

Most business records are kept for a set number of years and then destroyed. A notarial register is not, and the reason is structural.

Notarised documents are relied on long after they are made. A power of attorney may be used a decade after it was signed. A certified copy of a degree may be challenged years into a career. An affidavit may be produced in litigation long after the deponent has forgotten swearing it. The register has to outlive the document, and often the notary.

What the register makes possible

Verification. A receiving authority that doubts a document can contact the notary — through independently obtained details, not those on the document — and ask whether an act matching it was performed. A forgery will not match the register. This is the single most useful protection the register offers, and it is covered further in How to Verify a Notarised Document Is Genuine.

Evidence. Where the circumstances of a signature are later disputed — whether the person really appeared, whether they were identified, whether an interpreter was present — the register entry is contemporaneous evidence made by an independent officer.

Accountability. Because every act is recorded, a notary's practice can be examined. That discipline is part of why notarial acts are trusted internationally.

Public form and private form

In the notarial tradition Australia inherited, there are two broad ways of recording an act.

A private form act is the familiar kind: a certificate written on or attached to your document, signed and sealed by the notary, which you take away. The register records that it was done.

A public form act is a formal instrument drawn up by the notary in their own words, narrating what occurred. The notary may retain the instrument in their records and issue certified copies of it.

Most everyday Australian notarial work is in private form. Some destinations, particularly civil-law countries, expect public-form instruments for certain transactions. If a receiving authority asks for a "notarial deed" or a "notarial instrument", ask the notary which form is meant.

Privacy and access

A register contains personal information: names, identity documents, the nature of people's transactions. It is not a public register in the sense that anyone can inspect it.

A notary asked to confirm an act will usually confirm that an act of a described kind was recorded on a date, rather than disclose the entry or the underlying document. What a notary may or must disclose, and to whom, depends on the jurisdiction and on privacy law generally. If you need a full copy of something from the register — for example, because your notarised document was lost — ask the notary directly. Whether anything useful can be issued depends on what was retained and on the form of the original act.

When a notary retires or dies

Because the register is permanent, arrangements exist for its custody when a notary stops practising. Depending on the jurisdiction, it may pass to another notary, to a notarial society, or to the appointing Court. If you need to check an act by a notary who is no longer practising, the appointing Court or the local notarial society is the place to start.

What the register does not do

It does not make the document's contents true. The register records what the notary did — sighted an original, witnessed a signature, administered an oath — not whether what the document says is correct.

It also does not replace your own records. Keep your notarised originals and a copy of anything you send overseas.

Common questions

Can I ask to see my own entry in the register? You can ask. What the notary provides depends on their practice and the rules that apply to them.

Does a Justice of the Peace keep a register? Not in the same way. A JP is a volunteer witness for domestic purposes, and there is generally no equivalent permanent record behind a JP's certification.

Is the register electronic? Practice varies. Some notaries keep bound registers, some electronic ones, some both. What matters is that it is permanent and retrievable.

My notarised document was lost. Can the notary replace it? Usually not as a new original of a private-form act. The notary can confirm what was done, and in some cases issue a certified copy of what was retained. Often the practical answer is to repeat the act.