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Effect of Omission of Party Name

It is mandatory that a certificate of acknowledgment should contain the name of the party executing it.  The certificate of acknowledgment can be disqualified or become invalid if the name of the party executing the instrument and who appeared before the acknowledging officer leaves a blank space where the name had to be inserted.  If the name of the executing party can be ascertained or inferred from the face of the instrument or from other parts of the certificate, its validity may not be challenged.  However, such omission of the executing party’s name should not affect the effect of the instrument.

In Duffy v. Dwyer, 847 A.2d 266 (R.I. 2004), the judgment debtor’s last name was missing from the acknowledgment of a quitclaim deed to real property executed before a notary public.  However, creditor had constructive notice of the transfer, where the debtor’s first and last name were plainly stated in the quitclaim deed just inches above the acknowledgment.  This gave the defendant chance to locate the debtor’s title, and therefore did not render the transfer of the property to the transferee void.

In another instance, a certificate of acknowledgment was executed by debtors to appear in a trust deed.  It was compiled following all the statutory requirements.  However, the notary did not fill in the name of the grantors, and was simply mentioned as “they.”  The court held the certificate not to be fatally defective because the names of the grantors could be inferred by reading the certificate in conjunction with the trust deed.[i]

[i] In re Grable, 8 B.R. 363 (Bankr. E.D. Tenn. 1980).


Inside Effect of Omission of Party Name